Flexible contracts and human capital investments

As suggested by human capital theory, workers with flexible contracts participate lessoften in training than those with permanent contracts. We find that this is merely dueto the fact that flexworkers receive less employer–funded training, a gap they can onlypartly compensate for by their own training investments. Flexworkers particularlyparticipate less in firm–specific training that is meant to keep up with new skilldemands than workers with permanent contracts. However, for those who participatein employer–funded firm–specific training, a temporary contract appears to facilitatethe transition to a permanent contract with the same employer. However, this doesnot hold for participation in self–paid training. This training, which is usually generaltraining, does not help in finding a better job. (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)