Employability in practice

In this paper data referring to the salience of life long learning policies for employees are presented. These data are gathered from people working in Dutch horticulture and Dutch dairy industry. The study focuses on the points of view these employees have regarding the need to invest in their employability through training. The results emphasise the importance of training on the job for these employees, which according to many of them actually is sufficient to grow into a good worker. This is not in line with the emphasis laid on training and investing in human capital in general in the growing employability literature. Thus much needs to be done to communicate this need (assuming that it is real indeed) to the workforce. Therefore, the conclusion is drawn that employability policies do not relate to economic theory, such as the human capital approach, but rather to social theory