Moreover, in 2005, 39% of enterprises in the EU failed to provide any continuing training for their employees, the same figure as in 1999. In the current crisis, the downward slide of company investment in training is expected to get worse.

While the overall picture in Europe is one of stagnation, some countries are doing better than others. A composite measure of performance divides countries into high, medium, and low performers.

• Generally, Eastern Europe gained ground, but Western Europe's performance worsened.
• Slovenia has shown the biggest improvement, going from a low performer to a borderline high performer.
• All the high performers of 1999 except France, the Netherlands, Sweden and Finland, lost significant ground by 2005.
• The Czech Republic has joined the high performers.

Among the medium performers, Belgium and Germany both slipped a little.

• Romania, the lowest performer in 1999, has improved in all dimensions, while Spain and Portugal also showed improvements.
• Greece's performance further deteriorated between 1999 and 2005, placing the country last in the EU 27.

Cedefop's analysis of the CVTS-3 examines the policy and management of continuing training in enterprises in considerable depth, including the reasons why some companies do not provide training for their employees, the role of policy initiatives designed to encourage training in enterprises, and the impact of social partner agreements on the provision of in-service training.

The survey found that large enterprises are more likely than smaller ones to observe an effect from public measures and incentives on their own training provision, especially in the newer Member States. As Cedefop's report argues, this is a sign that the problems that small enterprises face in providing training for their employees are not being addressed adequately and that incentives are not sufficiently well targeted.

The European Continuing Vocational Training Survey (CVTS) is the only source of internationally comparable data on the volume, content, cost, and management of training in enterprises.

The third CVTS covers companies with ten or more employees in the EU 27, plus Norway. The analysis establishes a country's performance on the basis of a composite measure made of four indicators:

• incidence (training enterprises as a percentage of all companies)
• participation (participants in CVT courses as a percentage of employees in all companies)
• intensity (hours in CVT courses per 1000 hours worked)
• expenditure (total monetary expenditure on CVT courses as a percentage of total labor costs).