Skill provision concerns in the knowledge economy: training firms’ perspective

The rise of the knowledge economy has created new and higher skill demands on the labour market, posing challenges collective skill formation systems, traditionally catering to manual, mid-level skills. We examine how firms involved in apprentice training experience skill provision challenges in the knowledge economy, engaging with the political economy literature and with scholarship on ‘skill gaps’ and ‘skill shortages’. We explore factors predicting firms’ skill provision concerns, using novel survey data with over 1’650 participating Swiss training firms. Our findings lend support for scholarship emphasizing the primacy of digitalization and upskilling for a good adaptation to the knowledge economy, also in the context of dual vocational education and training systems. However, we identify issues of ‘skill gaps’ for firms in high-digitalized occupational fields, where the increasing attractiveness of general education at the expense of vocational education and training, and a lacking quality of applicants are prevalent. For firms in lower digitalized occupational fields, on the other hand, ‘skill shortage’ problems such as a loss of occupational popularity dominate.