Determinants and consequences of employer-provided training program resilience post-Covid-19

Abstract

Economic shocks provide both risks and opportunities for workplace training programs—the risk of program cancellation or interruption to skills development, and the opportunity to be at the vanguard of economic recovery. This paper analyzes the impact of Covid-19 and the resulting economic shock on training programs in the US using a survey amongst employers participating in training support networks, run from April-June 2021. We anticipate that programs expressly motivated by returns to investment and those that are higher quality and leading to stronger credentials will be most likely to survive the shock and have minimal disruption to skills acquisition. Results suggest that expressed motivations to train are generally not linked to training disruption or skills loss, while there is some evidence of paid programs and those offering better credentials being more likely to survive. Internships and programs that are more demographically diverse show a greater likelihood of disruption and skills loss.