and industries except Health and Healthcare and Meanwhile less than one in five respondents expect Accommodation, Food and Leisure (which seek changes to labour laws to accommodate remote greater flexibility on hiring and firing practices) work as a key policy for talent availability. Here, the and Agriculture and Natural Resources (which outliers are organizations in Telecommunications and seeks greater flexibility on setting wages). Notable Non-Profit sectors, and those in Switzerland that exceptions include China, Indonesia, Germany seek a better policy and regulatory environment for and the Philippines, which favour changes to remote work domestically and across borders. immigration laws on foreign talent as more likely to promote talent availability, and Argentina, Brazil and While companies tend to focus primarily on Colombia, which seek flexibility on hiring and firing government help with adult skills training, they do practices. Government funding for reskilling and not neglect the importance of better connecting upskilling is considered a relatively low priority only childhood education to evolving workplace skill in Colombia and Argentina, where only about 10% sets. Improvements to school systems was ranked of companies indicate its potential to increase talent the most promising public policy to improve talent availability. availability in the Telecommunications industry, and the second-most promising in the Chemical The second-most welcomed public policy is and Advanced Materials; Education and Training; increased flexibility on hiring and firing practices, Financial Services and Capital Markets; Government with one-third of organizations surveyed recognizing and Public Sector, Insurance and Pensions its impact. Such flexibility is most desired in the Management; Non-Governmental and Membership Electronics (50%) and Oil and Gas (48%) sectors. Organisations; and Research, design and Business Childcare availability and better access to transport Management Services industries. Notably, are seen as less effective, with several exceptions, improvements to school systems were valued as a such as in Israel, where 40% of the respondents means to attract skilled talent by a greater fraction of identified an increase in the quality or access to SMEs than large corporations. transport as key to improve talent availability. 5.3 Talent development A majority of companies in every country and As shown in Figure 5.10, companies industry express a net positive outlook for talent overwhelmingly expect to fund their own reskilling development of their existing workforce in the next and upskilling programmes, with a few notable five years. geographic exceptions, such as Georgia, where this funding mechanism ranks third, behind co-funding As shown in Figure 5.9, workforce development across the industry and public-private hybrid is most commonly considered the responsibility funding. At 16% engagement among surveyed of workers and managers, with 27% of training companies globally, co-funding across the industry provision to be furnished by on-the-job training and is forecast to be the least utilized funding model coaching. This share may be compared to the 81% for skills training, with particularly low uptake in the of companies noted at the beginning of this chapter Netherlands (2%), Switzerland (4%) and Romania that will employ learning and on-the-job training as (5%). On average, Europe exhibits the highest a key strategy to deliver their business goals – with uptake for intra-industry co-funding, with this a particularly strong prevalence in the Electronics mechanism least common in Sub-Saharan Africa, and Consumer-Goods Production industries, where East Asia and the Pacific, and Latin America and companies almost unanimously express that this is the Caribbean. a key part of their business strategy. Other common funding mechanisms including free- At 24%, companies assert that almost as a large of-cost training, which is a key funding mechanism a fraction of training will be provided by internal for more than half of Employment Services and training departments. Fifteen percent will be Mining and Metals firms; government funding, provided by employer-sponsored apprenticeships. which is expected to be utilized by more than half of External training solutions complete the list, with Electronics firms; and public-private hybrid funding, licensed training from professional associations which is emphasized by almost half of surveyed (13%), private-sector online-learning platforms Non-Governmental and Membership organizations (12%) and universities and other educational as well as companies operating in Agriculture, institutions (10%) comparatively disfavoured Forestry and Fishing. compared to company-led initiatives for closing skills gaps. This trend is most apparent in the Learning habits are evolving to make training Employment Services sector, which will look to faster and more flexible. Figure 5.11 shows on-the-job training and coaching for 38% of skills that companies expect 25% of their training training, and external solutions at a rate 15% below programmes to last less than one month during the global average. 2023–2027. Only 17% will last longer than a Future of Jobs Report 2023 57