Increasingly policy makers are focusing on the importance of skills and lifelong learning. The reason for this is that workers with sufficient and up-to-date skills are more productive and have more potential to remain employed. However, the processes that influence skill obsolescence, have largely been neglected in labor economics.

It was in the 1990s that skill issues came to the top of the agenda, because of the general awareness of the rapid technological developments that affect the demand for human capital. Although the analysis of skill-biased technological change is at the heart of this debate, in recent years, the literature has become wider than simple consideration of this aspect and has started to embrace other causes of obsolescence.

The papers in this volume are selected from the papers presented at a conference on Understanding Skills Obsolescence. They advance both the theoretical and empirical understanding of the causes and the effects of skills obsolescence.

Skills and workforce development are at the heart of much research on work, employment and management. But are they so important? To what extent can they make a difference for individuals, organisations and nations? How are the supply and - more importantly - the utilisation of skill - current evolving? What are the key factors shaping skills trajectories of the future? This Handbook provides an authoritative consideration of issues such these. It does so by drawing on experts in a wide range of disciplines including sociology, economics, labour/industrial relations, human resource management, education, and geography. The Handbook is relevant for all with an interest in the changing nature, and future, of work, employment and management. It draws on the latest scholarly insights to shed new light on all the major issues concerning skills and training today. While written primarily by leading scholars in the field it is equally relevant to policy makers and practitioners responsible for shaping the development of human capability today and into the future.