Do spatial agglomeration and local labor market competition affect employer-provided training? Evidence from the UK

Apprentice Poaching in Regional Labor Markets

“…regions where competition can be expected to be stronger. Brunello and Gambarotto (2007) do not identify poaching directly, but they show that regional density has a positive impact on voluntary job mobility, even more so for workers who have recently received training. Since part of the overall amount of voluntary job mobility could be instances of poaching, Brunello and Gambarotto (2007) argue that trained workers are more likely to get poached by other firms as regional employment density increases.…”

“…Against this background, and because within-industry and within-occupation mobility allows for a better transfer of skills and knowledge acquired on the job, employers in dense regional labor markets are expected to be particularly reluctant to provide training to their workers. Empirical studies indeed find a negative relationship between regional competition and firm-sponsored training (Brunello and Gambarotto, 2007;Brunello and De Paola, 2008;Mühlemann and Wolter, 2011;Andini et al, 2013). …”

“…Using data from the UK on employerprovided training, Brunello and Gambarotto (2007) study the relationship between individual workers' training participation and regional labor market competition. 3 Brunello and Gambarotto (2007) find a negative effect of regional employment density, measured at the NUTS 2 level (groups of counties), and industrial specialization on workers' participation in and the duration of firm-sponsored training.…”

“…We follow up on recent studies which find a negative relationship between regional employer competition and firms' training provision. Brunello and Gambarotto (2007) for example find a negative relationship between regional employment density, as well as industrial specialization, and employer-provided training in the UK. Similarly, Brunello and De Paola (2008) and Andini et al (2013) detect a negative relationship between regional employment density and firmsponsored training in Italy.…”

Do Rural Migrants Benefit from Labor Market Agglomeration Economies? Evidence from Chinese Cities

“…These benefits are generally called labor market pooling effect. Knowledge spillover effects, often also dubbed human capital externalities, refer to a worker's learning from other workers in the same local market through formal and informal social interactions, such as imitating, social networking, job hopping, poaching, and learning by doing (Brunello and Gambarotto, 2007;Eriksson and Lindgren, 2009;Moretti, 2004a,c;Rosenthal and Strange, 2008). Labor market Marshallian externalities also operate through these channels.…”