Company training and services - Focus on low skills : Focus on Low Skills

This special issue of the International Journal of Manpower aims to make a contribution to broadening our limited understanding of the role and impact of employer-provided training for low-skilled service sector workers. It brings together seven of the papers that were presented at the international conference “Adapting Education and Training for the Enhancement of Low-Skilled Jobs” held at Helsinki in May 2002. The papers are situated at the crossroads where three different strands of research and policymaking meet: the training of the low skilled, the system of vocational training and the role of training for the service sector. The contributions cover an interesting variety of European countries: Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Sweden, Spain and the UK, with diverging levels of low-skilled (un)employment, vocational training and service-sector employment.