The Right Skills for the Job?: Rethinking Training Policies for Workers

Creating jobs and increasing productivity are at the top of agenda for policymakers across the world. Knowledge accumulation and skills are recognized as central in this process. More-educated workers not only have better employment opportunities, earn more, and have more stable and rewarding jobs, but also they are more adaptable and mobile. Workers who acquire more skills also make other workers and capital more productive and, within the firm, they facilitate the adaptation, adoption, and ultimately invention of new technologies. This is crucial to enable economic diversification, productivity growth, and ultimately raise the standards of living of the population. This report brings new ideas on how to build and upgrade job relevant skills, focusing on three types of training programs relevant for individuals who are leaving the formal general schooling system or are already in the labor market: pre-employment technical and vocational education and training (TVET); on-the-job training (OJT); and training-related active labor market programs (ALMPs). Several previous studies have discussed some of the flaws in current systems and outlined options for reform. As a consequence, there has been a shift away from the investment in pre-vocational training courses to programs to improve access to and the quality of general secondary education. There have also been calls to encourage a stronger involvement of the private sector in the provision of training, together with increased emphasis in the quality and relevance of the content. One result has been a push to rethink the governance and financing arrangements of training institutions. But overall policies at these three levels of the training systems remain disconnected and there has not been an integrated framework linking them to the market and government failures that need to be addressed. This book makes two important contributions. First, it takes an in-depth look at the types of market and government failures that can result in underinvestment in training or the supply of skills that are not immediately relevant to the labor market. Second, building on the analysis of the limitations of both markets and governments and the results of case studies and recent impact evaluations, the report develops new ideas to improve the design and performance of current training systems.