Compares matched samples of precision engineering plants in Britain and The Netherlands. Suggests that labour productivity levels in British industry are 25‐30 per cent lower than in The Netherlands. This is seen to reflect slower investment in new capital equipment and lower average levels of...

The present paper makes use of detailed information gathered at university department level, combined with graduate survey data, to assess the impact of different kinds of employability skills initiative on graduate labour market performance. We find that structured work experience and employer...

The recent diffusion of'lean production' work practices and various forms of team-working in manufacturing industry has revived old arguments about the likely decline of production supervisors. These issues are here submitted to empirical scrutiny through a detailed comparison of the skills and...

In two very different industries-biscuit manufacturing and precision engineering-US leadership in labour productivity relative to Western European countries is found to depend heavily on greater opportunities for scale-economies of production. Inter-country differences in the age and...

The contribution of differences in the Dutch and British education and training systems to the significant Dutch advantage in manufacturing productivity levels is examined in this article. The Dutch schooling system is characterised by high standards in mathematics, the provision of vocational...

This article reports on a detailed comparison of productivity, machinery and skills in matched samples of food manufacturing (biscuit) plants in Britain, Germany, the Netherlands and France. In comparing labour productivity levels, explicit account was taken of inter-country differences in the...

Previous international comparisons of workforce skills by the National Institute have focussed on the relative shortage of craft skills in Britain. The present study is concerned with the next higher level of supervisory and technician skills; on the basis of visits to factories and technical...