Flexible Contracts and Human Capital Investments

Abstract

As suggested by human capital theory, workers with flexible contracts participate less often in training than those with permanent contracts. We find that this is merely due to the fact that flexworkers receive less employer-funded training, a gap they can only partly compensate for by their own training investments. Flexworkers particularly participate less in firm-specific training that is meant to keep up with new skill demands than workers with permanent contracts. However, for those who participate in employer-funded firm-specific training, a temporary contract appears to facilitate the transition to a permanent contract with the same employer. However, this does not hold for participation in self-paid training. This training, which is usually general training, does not help in finding a better job.