Technical and professional persons are especially threatened by the potentiality of becoming outdated in their skills and their knowledge. It is not enough for workers in these fields to maintain the competence acquired in the years of formal education. Their information bank is anything but static; the norm is perpetual change. Psychologists,…

This working paper, part of a project on the applicability of the French training system in the United States, argues that a systematic national commitment to midcareer worker retraining is necessary for American prosperity and international economic competitiveness. Although findings of the early human capital theorists demonstrated that an…