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This article outlines a conceptual framework for mapping and understanding training trends. It uses the metonyms of floors and ceilings to distinguish between different types of training configurations. The argument is made that the ups and downs of employer reports of training activity are a crude basis on which to make judgements about the resilience or otherwise of training to the economic cycle. The article, therefore, suggests and demonstrates with qualitative evidence that using the metonyms of 'floors and ceilings' provides a more nuanced understanding of the multiple pathways that lead employers to increase, decrease or maintain training activity during an economic recession.

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There has been much talk recently about looming shortages in Canada’s supply of individuals working in health occupations. To understand the degree to which the supply of workers in health occupations is meeting (and will meet) the health needs of Canadians, Health Canada - through the Advisory Committee on Health Delivery and Human Resources (ACHDHR) - contracted the Centre for Education Statistics at Statistics Canada to study the relationship between education and training and the supply of entrants into health occupations. Using major Statistics Canada data sources related to the education and training of Canadians, this report reveals some important information about what happens before, during and after health education. It focuses on interest in health occupations, the characteristics of students and faculty in postsecondary health programs, the labour market experiences of recent graduates from these programs, as well as the ongoing participation of health workers in formal and informal training. As a starting point in understanding the flow of individuals into and through health education programs, it is important to learn more about the size and nature of the population of individuals who are interested in health occupations.

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This report provides a summary of the evidence base on the question: 'What learning happens in the workplace, and how is it recognised?'. It draws on national and international research findings - both quantitative and qualitative - and identifies ten key messages: (1) The starting points are to recognise that: (a) paradigms of learning differ; and (b) workplaces are contested spaces in which what counts as 'learning'; (2) Measures of 'learning as acquisition' include the incidence of workplace training; (3) Real levels of training expenditure by employers have also moved downwards; (4) Despite the emphasis placed on training course attendance and the acquisition of qualifications, both are relatively low-rated by employees in terms of their helpfulness in improving work performance; (5) At a time when formal workplace training has been declining, the evidence suggests that the importance of learning on-the-job is rising; (6) All sources of workplace learning from whatever paradigm are skewed towards those at the top of the occupational hierarchy; (7) Much of the qualitative evidence shows that learning occurs naturally in all workplaces as part of everyday activity in line with the learning as participation approach; (8) Workplace learning takes many forms stretching across a 'formal-informal' continuum; (9) International research evidence suggests that the key inter-related determinants in the variability of workplace learning environments are context and individual behaviour; and (10) External recognition and accreditation of workplace learning is problematic due to its largely collective and dynamic nature.

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This article examines the impact of the 2008-9 recession on training activity in the UK. In international terms, the UK is assumed to have a deregulated training market which is sensitive to changing economic conditions. However, national datasets and qualitative interviews suggest that, despite the severity of the recession, employers cut training expenditures by a small amount and the impact on training participation rates was minimal. Contrary to the starting assumption of a deregulated training market, the article shows that employers in the UK do not have a completely free hand and that a combination of market intervention and business requirements obliged most of them to sustain training despite the recession. These constraints included: compliance with legal requirements, meeting operational needs and satisfying customer demands. However, the recession prompted many employers to find ways of maintaining training coverage to meet these obligations, or as several respondents put it, 'train smarter'.

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This project focuses on how training activity in the UK has fared in the 2008-09 recession. Using a combination of statistical analysis of large-scale surveys and in-depth telephone interviews with 105 employers, the research examined, inter alia: How the 2008-09 recession has affected training activity in the UK - in terms of its incidence, intensity and quality? What explains the diversity of employers' training responses? How the nature of training activity has changed? How the pattern of these responses compares with responses given during the last recession in the UK in 1991-92? This second interim report provides an update to the activities reported last year. It therefore comprises updates to UKCES analysis of: the Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS); the National Employer Skills Survey (NESS) 2009; and qualitative telephone interviews with employers. These form the substantive parts of the report, but each is a work in progress and accordingly, the updates vary in length. The section which extends data already presented in detail is relatively short (QLFS) compared to longer sections which provide more in-depth analysis of data only briefly presented previously (NESS) or on qualitative material relating to the public sector which has not previously been presented.

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The creation of a learning environment at work has been seen as an essential concomitant of the growth of an advanced economy. This article explores the implications of direct participation for different types of employee learning, drawing upon the British Skills and Employment Surveys of 2006 and 2012. It confirms that direct participation is strongly associated with enhanced learning opportunities at work but finds important differences in the benefits of specific forms of direct participation. Moreover, direct participation was found to be particularly important for those in less favorable work contexts with respect to technological level and skill.

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This paper looks at work-based training statistics derived from data collected by the Labour Force Survey (LFS), which is the key information source for the annual volume - Education and Training Statistics in the United Kingdom. The authors are uneasy with some analysis of the data which they feel does not tell the whole story and they believe that a more cautious interpretation of the data is called for. Firstly, they consider the interpretation of the data on the amount of training being undertaken, which is supported by tables. They identify a problem related to interviewing by proxy, which is a particular feature of the LFS, and a smaller concern of interpretation of part of the questionnaire. Secondly, in considering data on the content and quality of training, the authors are concerned about the shortage of statistics on the characteristics of training - the purpose, whether skills are transferable and whether participants had to forego leisure or meet costs. They conclude that a new analysis of the same data shows a different picture of the long-term trend. Notes and references are appended. Show less

Since the Leitch Review (2006) the UK government has had an ambition that the skills of the British workforce could live up to a certain vision for 2020, with achievable targets for the education and training levels by that year. Dramatic economic events, however, were unforeseen at the time of that review, or even by the time of the inauguration of the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) in April 2008. In the second quarter of 2008, after almost 16 years of unbroken Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth, the UK economy entered its deepest post-war recession. Over the next year and a half the UK's GDP fell by 6.4 per cent. Modal current predictions are for very slow growth, and there remains a risk that there will be a double-dip recession. This project addresses the question as to whether the recession is likely to have a long term impact on the achievement of skills ambitions in the UK (Financial Times, 13 July 2010).

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Good quality and extensive training opportunities are essential for increasing the skills of the workforce. This report tracks what has been happening in Britain's workplaces in recent years. The volume of training has fallen: the proportion of British workers engaged annually in more than 10 days' training declined from 38 per cent in 2006 to 34 per cent in 2012. This fall is especially concentrated among women. There have been no changes between 2006 and 2012 in the extent of certification of training or in its perceived contribution to skills enhancement. But fewer people are satisfied with the training they receive, and fewer report that their training helps them to enjoy their job more. The quality of training, like its volume, is greater for those workers with more prior education; this gradation reinforces inequality. There is a rising demand by workers at all levels of education to receive workplace training.

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