Technology Use, Training and Plant-Specific Knowledge in Manufacturing Establishments

This study examines the factors influencing a firm’s decision to train, using data taken from several recent Statistic Canada surveys that explore advanced technology use by Canadian manufacturing plants. Advanced technology adoption has been both rapid and pervasive, leading to concerns about whether technology use is associated with an increase or a decrease in workers’ skills. Based on the data collected through two surveys, this paper examines the relationship between technology use and the skill level of workers. It does so by first reporting on the opinions of managers of Canadian manufacturing establishments, who indicate that technology use leads to skill increases. Second, this paper examines the relationship between a plant’s decision to train and certain other characteristics of the plant, including its technology use. Third, it investigates the factors related to the location of training in order to determine whether the training done by plants imparts primarily generic skills or plant-specific skills. Finally, it reports on survey results that show plants that introduced new technologies had to increase their expenditures for training.