Glad to write that another paper has been accepted by Regulation and Governance for publication. The paper entitled “Re-skilling in the age of skill shortage: Adult education rather than active labour market policy” (co-authored with Giuliano Bonoli and Alina Felder-Stindt) is also part of the special issue on meeting the twin challenge in times of labor shortage. Here is the abstract:
European economies face the task of providing the necessary skills for the ‘twin transition’ in a period of skill shortage. As a result, we may expect countries to reorient their labour market policy towards re-skilling. We look for evidence of a reorientation in two relevant policy fields: active labour market policy (ALMP) and adult education (AE). We explore general trends in both fields based on quantitative indicators and compare recent policy developments in four countries with strong ALMP and AE sectors: Denmark, France, Germany and Sweden. We do not observe clear evidence of a general movement away from activation and toward re-skilling in ALMP. However, in AE, we identify several re-skilling initiatives that address skill shortages. Relying on insights from queuing theories of hiring and training, we argue that due to changes in the population targeted by ALMP, the locus of re-skilling policy is increasingly moving towards AE.
Patrick Emmenegger 