Share of training enterprises in Cyprus and EU decreased in 2020

The percentage of companies employing 10 or more persons, where the staff participated in training courses declined in 2020 compared to 2015 according to Eurostat, the statistical service of the EU.

In 2020, 67.4 per cent of enterprises employing 10 or more persons in the EU were considered ‘training enterprises’, meaning that their staff either participated in continuing vocational training (CVT) courses or at least in one of the other forms of CVT (guided on-the-job training, learning cycles, etc.).

Compared with 2015, there was a 3.1 percentage points (pp) decrease from 70.5 per cent, which can most likely be explained by reduced business activities, closures, and restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In Cyprus, 65.7 per cent of applicable companies were considered training enterprises. Compared to 2015 there was a 3.8 pp reduction from 69.5 per cent.

In 2020, the share of enterprises that provided any form of CVT was highest in Latvia with 96.8 per cent, followed by Sweden (91.5 per cent), Czechia (85.9), Belgium (82.2 per cent) and Estonia (79.8 per cent).

The lowest percentage was in Romania (17.5 per cent), followed by Greece (17.8 per cent), then there is a big jump of almost 20 pp to Hungary (37.7 per cent), Poland (40.9 per cent) and Bulgaria (45.1 per cent).

In the EU, enterprises in services (other than distributive trades or accommodation and food services) were more likely to provide CVT, especially in the information and communication services and financial and insurance activities, where the proportion of enterprises providing CVT in 2020 was 82.8 per cent.

In 2020, only enterprises in industry (except construction) saw a little increase of 1 pp in the share of training enterprises in 2020 (70.5 per cent) compared with 2015 (69.5 per cent), while enterprises in all other economic activities reported a decrease of between 2 and 5 pp.

The construction sector reported the highest decrease (-5.3 pp) in the share of enterprises providing CVT between 2015 (69.4 per cent) and 2020 (64.1 per cent), while the lowest decrease (-1.7 pp) was observed in ’information and communication services, financial and insurance activities’ sector, from 84.5 per cent in 2015 to 82.8 per cent in 2020.