La formation financée par l'entreprise favorise-t-elle l'emploi en Belgique ?

The objective of this paper is to model and estimate the impact of labour training financed by the firm on labour demand in Belgium. This impact has not been estimated so far, though the growing importance of training in the European context. We first look at training practices and costs among European firms and explain why they invest in training. We then model the influence of training on labour demand, assuming profit maximizing firms producing under a short run monopolistic competition regime. We emphasize that training variables can either increase labour demand through their positive effect on labour physical productivity net from the dropping price required to sell additional production, and that they can decrease labour demand through increased direct labour costs and wages.GMM estimations on a panel of 269 firms observed during the period 1998-2004 show non significant impacts of training variables on labour demand, the productivity and cost effects seeming rather to offset each other. These results allow to suggest firstly two scenarios related to firms and workers behaviour and secondly that subsidiary training could favour employment under the two assumptions that firms do not use specific training to adopt monopsonistic behaviour and that workers do not claim for higher wages as a result of their additional productivity.