Skills training: who benefits?

This paper explores some common political dynamics and conflicting interests underlying the rise of skills training policies in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Great Britain. In these countries policy makers have forged an apparent consensus across social groups with diverse and sometime conflicting interests in the structure and purposes of skills training. The resulting reforms have been designed to ensure that control over and benefits from skills training are redirected away from individuals and unions into the hands of private capital. In this framework, skills development is...  [+] Show more

This paper explores some common political dynamics and conflicting interests underlying the rise of skills training policies in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Great Britain. In these countries policy makers have forged an apparent consensus across social groups with diverse and sometime conflicting interests in the structure and purposes of skills training. The resulting reforms have been designed to ensure that control over and benefits from skills training are redirected away from individuals and unions into the hands of private capital. In this framework, skills development is being transformed from the chance for individuals to gain bargaining power in the labour market, into an opportunity for employers to gain workers whose knowledge and skill is already tightly harnessed to the interests of the business. These issues are examined within this paper. The analysis focuses on the changing social organisation of the concept of skill itself rather than the familiar issues of restructuring in the training industry.