The right skills for the job? Rethinking training policies for workers
The contributions of the current report are twofold. First, the report 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 (see Chapter 2).
Regarding markets, the discussion goes beyond the classic problem of individuals not taking into account the social benefi ts of their investments in education, and focuses instead on imperfections in labor and capital markets, as well as decision-making problems facing individuals.
The second contribution focuses on policies. 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 programs, which often involve interventions outside the education and training systems (see Chapters 3 to 5).
