Can older workers be retrained? Canadian evidence from worker-firm linked data

Using Statistics Canada's worker-firm matched Workplace and Employee Survey, which provides the most comprehensive series of firm-related and worker-related training indicators (54), we found that the mean probability of receiving training was 9.3 percentage points higher for younger workers (25-49) than for older ones (50+). Slightly more than half of the gap is explained by older workers having a lower propensity to receive training, this being the gap that remained after we controlled for differences between the two groups in training-associated characteristics. Their lower propensity to receive training tended to prevail across 54 different training measures. We conclude that older workers can be trained, but their training should be redesigned in several ways: by making instruction slower and self-paced; by assigning hands-on practical exercises; by providing modular training components to be taken in stages; by familiarizing the trainees with new equipment; and by minimizing required reading and amount of material covered.