Who gets training?
An important policy issue is whether employees have equal
access to training regardless of age, gender, industry,
occupation or other characteristics. The findings here provide an
initial impression, but future research should account for
differences in training needs.
In all six countries (information is not available for
Sweden), workers aged 45 and over received the least amount of
training. In Canada, average hours of training per employee was
29 hours for workers aged 45–60, while workers aged
25–34 (55 hours) and 35–44 (49 hours) got almost twice
as much training time. The fact that Canadian workers aged
35–44 reported almost as many training hours as younger
workers is uncommon. Other IALS countries were much more like the
United States, where the training intensity for workers aged
25–34 (average 72 hours per employee) was much greater than
that for workers aged 35 and over.
Women received less training than men, except in the
Netherlands and Poland. In Canada, training for women averaged 10
hours less per employee – 38 hours versus 48 hours per male
employee. The gender gap was even wider in the United States,
where women received about 14 hours less training (37 hours
versus 51 hours for men). In the Netherlands, however, it was men
whose training lagged behind, at 67 hours per male employee
compared with 100 hours per female.
In all the IALS countries, a strong positive relationship
exists between a worker’s level of education and literacy,
on the one hand, and the intensity of training, on the other. In
Canada, training averaged 63 hours of training for employees with
high educational attainment, double the training hours reported
by workers with lower levels of schooling (29 hours). Training
averages were almost identical in the United States, at 64 and 29
hours.
More training was also received by workers with higher levels
of literacy (Levels 3–5). The relationship between
literacy and training is complex, but can be described as a
"virtuous" cycle of education-literacy-work, in which
education and literacy lead to better employment opportunities in
higher-wage jobs with more access to training. In Canada, workers
with high levels of document literacy received an average 50
hours of training, compared with 32 hours for workers with low
levels (Levels 1–2). The size of the gap was about
the same in the United States, where workers received an average
of 53 and 34 training hours, depending on their literacy skills.
In Europe, however, employees with high document literacy
reported almost twice as many training hours; for example, Dutch
workers with high literacy skills received an average 87 hours of
training, compared with 44 hours for their colleagues with
lower-level skills.
Which jobs offer the most training?
In all the reporting IALS countries except Germany,
professionals and managers received more hours of training per
employee than workers in the other major occupational groups. In
Canada, they received only a few hours more than workers in
clerical, service and sales occupations – 49 hours versus 44
hour per employee, respectively – but they received 40% more
training hours than craftsmen, operators and assemblers (35 hours
per employee). At the same time, however, Canada reported the
lowest number of training hours for employees in white-collar
occupations. In the United States and Europe, managers and
professionals averaged a minimum of 60 training hours (excludes
Germany, since high sampling variability is associated with this
estimate.)
Goods-producing industries had the lowest incidence of
training in all the IALS countries except Germany (caution is
advised since the German estimate is subject to wide sampling
variability). In Canada, employees in goods-producing industries
averaged 38 hours of training, compared with 47 hours in the
highest-training industries in the community and personal
services sector. The gap between these two sectors was almost 20
hours in the United States – 35 hours in goods-producing and
56 hours in community and personal services.
On the whole, workers in small firms (fewer than 100
employees) did not receive as much training as those in large
firms (100 or more employees). In Canada, however, the gap was
quite small, at 42 hours per employee compared with 46 hours in
larger firms; at 15 hours, the United States had the largest gap
of the IALS countries (35 hours versus 50 training hours per
employee).
Although small firms do less training, small Canadian firms
have a better training record (average 42 hours per employee)
than those in any other IALS country except Switzerland (46 hours
per employee).
Why do workers take training?
Most full-time employees who took training did so for career
or job-related reasons. In Canada and the United States, 90% and
94% of trainees, respectively, took at least one course to
improve their job skills; these proportions are slightly higher
than in Europe, where job-related training accounted for 71%
(Switzerland) to 88% (Germany) of training. For the most part, these newly-learned
skills were put to work: in Canada, the United States and the
Netherlands, at least 90% of employees who received
employer-supported training subsequently used their training on
the job.
Who asks for training?
An important finding is the fact
that employees commonly suggest to their employers that they take
training. In Canada, 29% of employer-supported courses were taken
by employees who had asked themselves for the training; another
15% of courses were taken by workers who had jointly suggested
with their employer that they take the training.
It is also important to note that, for the most part, the
characteristics associated with a higher intensity of training
– younger age group, managerial and professional
occupations, high level of education and so on – are also
associated with a desire for job-related or career training.
These results suggest that employees have more influence on
employer-supported training decisions than is generally believed,
and that promoting employer-supported training is the joint
responsibility of employer and employees.
Conclusion
Compared with other countries, Canada’s training effort
is only average. However, the Canadian work force stands out for
its high level of education, providing the essential prerequisite
for promoting training and strengthening competitiveness. The
fact that a high proportion of workers want more job-related
training is evidence that Canadian employees understand the value
of training.
