Inclusive and effective reskilling through private online technical certification programmes

As we move towards a world of automation and AI, the skills needed to succeed in the labour market are changing. Although low-skill jobs are at the highest risk, low-skilled adults' participation in job-related training is 40 percentage points below that of high-skilled adults, on average in the OECD. Supporting adults with low skills to upskill and reskill is imperative for a future of work that is both more productive and inclusive. Tech-related jobs are experiencing particularly high growth, and, in the past year, there has been a proliferation of private online technical training certification programmes (POTCPs) which claim to give learners the skills needed for many in-demand jobs at a fraction of the cost and time of a traditional college degree (Bariso, 2020). These programmes emerged before the pandemic - e.g., Google launched the IT Support Professional Certificate in 2018 - but the pandemic is likely to have fuelled their dramatic expansion over the past year. I propose studying whether adults in low-skilled, low-wage jobs are participating in POTCPs, their engagement with POTCPs, and whether POTCPs are able to effectively upskill / reskill workers such that they can advance their careers. If POTCPs are inclusive and effective, then they may be one potential solution to improving labour market opportunities for those with jobs most at risk, in an era of rapidly changing-skill requirements.