Training and Resilience: Evidence from Italian Industrial Firms during Covid-19

This paper analyzes firm-level data to show that training fostered resilience in Italian industrial enterprises during the Covid-19 shock in 2020. Resilience is measured by whether a firm remained open in the fall of 2020, over six months after the pandemic outbreak. Results from alternative estimators support the hypothesis that training boosts organizational resilience. The positive effect of training on a firm’s likelihood of staying open was stronger for smaller enterprises and significantly larger in sectors subject to temporary closures during the first pandemic wave. Results also suggest that the positive effects of training stemmed from investment in firm-specific and organizational skills. Consistently with previous evidence, our estimates show that larger, more productive and innovative enterprises were more likely to be open. These findings highlight the critical role of human capital investment in navigating unexpected disruptions and suggest that training policies could enhance firms’ adaptive capacity during crises.