Estonian enterprises' readiness for training has grown

As compared to an earlier survey of the year 1999, the number of enterprises in Estonia offering their employees in-service training has increased 4% within six years. In 2005 the United Kingdom had the highest percentage (90%) of enterprises enabling their employees in-service training, while Greece had the lowest percentage (21%). In comparison with Nordic countries Denmark and Sweden Estonian enterprises pay less attention to the training of their employees, but among Baltic countries Estonia comes before Lithuania and Latvia.

The percentage of enterprises offering their employees in-service training among European Union countries (EU 27), 2005

Source: Eurostat. The data have not been presented by Slovenia, Finland, Ireland and Italy.

In the European Union mostly men participate in training courses. But there are countries besides Estonia where women are more active in participating in courses than men. For example in Denmark and Malta women are ahead of men with 6–7 percentage points. In Estonia, out of all the enterprises, 23% of men and 26% of women participated in courses in 2005. Both values are lower than the European Union average. Six years earlier, in 1999, the corresponding indicators were 18% and 20%, which shows that women have started to participate in training courses more actively.

In Estonia the age of people participating in courses is 25–54 years (which is 26% of the number of the employees of this age), whereas also younger employees (younger than 25) are not much behind (25% of employees of this age participate in trainings). Among the oldest employees (older than 54 years) only one sixth participates in courses. Such an age pattern is typical of most European Union countries, Denmark being an exception, where the elderly people participate in trainings most, and Lithuania, Malta and Austria, where the younger age group participates in trainings most actively. Financial intermediation enterprises differ from other enterprises, where most active are employees aged over 54. Also real estate, rental and business services enterprises, as well as companies active in other community, social and personal service activities are an exception, where the younger staff train themselves most. In big companies (with 250 employees and more)

mainly young people participate in in-service trainings; in medium and small companies middle age group (aged 25–54) participate in courses most.

The survey “Adult Education in Enterprises” is conducted by statistical organisations on the basis of the uniform methodology in all European Union countries. Statistics Estonia organised the first survey on adult training in 2000 (for the year 1999) and the second one in 2006 (for the year 2005).