Criteria lists of academic skills are widely used to assess the work readiness of people who are looking to enter or re-enter the apprenticeship market. These instruments represent a particular hurdle in the path to vocational training for low-skilled would-be trainees. We investigate the validity of one such list used in Germany. As different…

Research on the labour market experiences of highly skilled migrants has revealed the crippling employability challenges they face in the UK workplace resulting from the devaluation of their homeland qualifications and experiences. Studies on highly skilled migrants from Zimbabwe have revealed how migrants have to resort to semi-skilled and…

This article uses the concept of bounded agency to interpret the findings of a study that explored the training and job-seeking activities of a group of older adults. A qualitative, phenomenological approach was used to obtain personal and nuanced accounts of their experiences. A series of semi-structured interviews was conducted with eight adults…

The main purpose of this paper is to provide an in-depth analysis of participation in non-formal learning in different European Union member states. The paper also seeks to extend analysis of the training gap by pursuing the distinction between the supply and the demand for skills. We use aggregate data from the Adult Education Survey (Eurostat)…

A sample of marriage registers from the parish of Liverpool St. Nicholas Church in England between 1839-1927 is used to examine changing characteristics of grooms who signed with a mark over this period. The proportion of illiterate grooms in the parish fell from about a third to under 5%. Age at marriage and likelihood of being a widower rose…

The steel industry in Europe has faced great changes, with resulting layoffs and restructuring. Now that the most basic changes seem to be over, it has become evident that the remaining steel industry requires more highly trained workers than was the case previously. Although steel maintenance employees were always highly skilled, steel production…

Most of the job losses that occurred in New York City after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center occurred in low-wage jobs held by lower-skilled workers. Many of those affected faced multiple obstacles limiting their employment prospects, including limited literacy and English language skills and a lack of "connections" to…