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Firms' method of pay and the retention of apprentices

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  • Miriam Rinawi

    (Department of Business Administration, University of Zurich)

  • Uschi Backes-Gellner

    (Department of Business Administration, University of Zurich)

Abstract

The new training literature views regulated labour markets as critical for firms' willingness to participate in apprenticeship training. These regulations allow training firms to retain their apprenticeship graduates at the end of the training period and recoup training costs. Yet, in spite of an only loosely regulated labour market, many Swiss firms offer and pay for training. Using representative data from a large employer-employee survey, we investigate whether these firms use performance-related pay to retain their graduates. We find that both the magnitude and the likelihood of performance-related pay are significantly related to a firm's retention success.

Suggested Citation

  • Miriam Rinawi & Uschi Backes-Gellner, 2014. "Firms' method of pay and the retention of apprentices," Economics of Education Working Paper Series 0104, University of Zurich, Department of Business Administration (IBW), revised Jan 2020.
  • Handle: RePEc:iso:educat:0104
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    Cited by:

    1. Esther Mirjam Girsberger & Miriam Rinawi & Matthias Krapf, 2018. "Wages and Employment: The Role of Occupational Skills," CESifo Working Paper Series 7114, CESifo.
    2. Harald Pfeifer & Uschi Backes-Gellner, 2017. "Another piece of the puzzle: Firms' investment in training as optimization of skills inventory," Economics of Education Working Paper Series 0136, University of Zurich, Department of Business Administration (IBW), revised Jun 2018.

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    Keywords

    Keywords:;

    JEL classification:

    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J33 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Compensation Packages; Payment Methods
    • M52 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Compensation and Compensation Methods and Their Effects
    • M53 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Training

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