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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.

This chapter assesses the extent to which historical levels of inequality affect the creation and survival of businesses over time. To this end, we use the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor survey across 66 countries over 2005–2011. We complement this survey with data on income inequality dating back to early 1800s and current institutional environment, such as the number of procedures to start a new business, countries’ degree of financial inclusion, corruption and political stability. We find that, although inequality increases the number of firms created out of need, inequality reduces entrepreneurial activity as in net terms businesses are less likely to be created and survive over time. These findings are robust in using different measures of inequality across different points in time and regions, even if excluding Latin America, the most unequal region in the world. Our evidence then supports theories that argue early conditions, crucially inequality, influence development path.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the matching process before and after the Great Recession in the Netherlands. The Dutch case is interesting because it is characterised by increasing matching efficiency.

This paper uses data from 2001 to 2014 to study the Dutch labour market matching process accounting for the three labour market states and their heterogeneities.

The elasticity of hires with respect to the short-term employed was significant, positive and countercyclical, while elasticities relating to new entrants were procyclical. The matching function (MF) displays constant returns to scale (CRTS) when using an alternative labour supply (LS) measure that includes the short-term employed as jobseekers. The findings are at odds with the idea of mismatch and a shortage of skills. Search frictions for employers were lower and vacancies were filled faster. This can be related to the fact that in a loose labour market context with increasing short-term employment, employers increase their hiring of employed workers which generates negative externalities on unemployed.

The implications concern the specification of the MF and the CRTS assumption when using unemployment as a LS measure.

This paper identifies market forces which induce employers to provide training in Ireland. It investigates if they are present in sufficient strength in the consumer service sectors with a high concentration of low‐skill jobs to provide a basis to upgrade such jobs. Data from a survey of firms on training incidence, duration, and cost are used in OLS regressions to investigate the determinants of training at national and sector level. The results show that firm size, the proportion of skilled workers, foreign ownership, perception of changing skill requirements and tightness of the labour market all influence employers' training decisions. Analysis of sector‐specific effects indicates that firms in consumer service sectors are unlikely to respond to market forces by increasing training to a level which would encompass low‐skill jobs. However, policies involving the school system and company‐based training could help to enhance low‐skill jobs in consumer service sectors.