The Impact of Training on Labour Mobility: Individual and Firm-level Evidence from Britain

We investigate the impact of different types of training on the mobility expectations of workers, using three surveys. Most training episodes produce some transferable skills, and most transferable training is paid for by employers. Overall, training has no impact on mobility in three out of every five cases; the remaining cases are split equally between those where training increases and those where it decreases mobility. We find that training is more likely to lead to lower mobility when it is less transferable to other firms, is sponsored by firms, and where its objectives include increasing the identification of employees with corporate objectives. Copyright Blackwell Publishers Ltd/London School of Economics 2000.