Skill Development and Regional Mobility: Lessons from the Australia-Pacific Technical College - Working Paper 370

Michael Clemens
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Michael A. Clemens

No 370, Working Papers from Center for Global Development

Abstract: Developing countries invest in training skilled workers and can lose part of their investment if those workers emigrate. One response is for the destination countries to design ways to participate in financing skilled emigrants’ training before they migrate—linking skill creation and skill mobility. Such designs can learn from the experience of the Australian-aid-funded Australia-Pacific Technical College (APTC). The APTC is financing and conducting vocational training in five Pacific island developing countries for thousands of workers with the objective of providing them with opportunities to find employment at home and abroad—including in Australia. With thousands of graduates across the region the APTC has attained its goal of skill creation, but has not attained its goal of skill mobility. This paper establishes and explains this finding, and draws lessons for future initiatives that may seek to link skill creation with higher levels of skill mobility.

Keywords: skill; education; labor; training; human capital; migration; brain drain; Australia; pacific; mobility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 J24 O15 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 41 pages
Date: 2014-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hrm, nep-lab and nep-mig
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cgd:wpaper:370

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