What Is Preventing Employees From Changing Careers, According to Research

What Is Preventing Employees From Changing Careers, According to Research

If you are wondering what is preventing employees from changing careers, the answer the data keeps pointing to is not hesitation or lack of ambition. Workers want to develop new skills. The problem is that the systems meant to support that development employer-funded training, structured development programs, internal mobility pathways are unevenly distributed, and the workers who most need them to make a career pivot are often the least likely to receive them.

Indeed Hiring Lab published survey findings earlier this year drawing on more than 80,900 interviews across eight countries: the US, UK, Ireland, Germany, France, Australia, Canada, and Japan. Workers across all eight markets consistently rated skill development as a personal priority. Employers, in many cases, did not match that commitment. In the US, 67% of employees called skill development a personal priority, while only 48% believed their employer shared that view a 19-point gap. That split, between what workers want and what employers deliver, is where barriers to changing careers tend to take shape.

This article examines what the research says about why that gap exists, who it affects most, and how workers considering a career change can use that knowledge before committing time or money to a transition plan.

Training is one barrier to changing careers, not the only one

Before going further, it helps to be clear about what this evidence establishes and what it does not.

The research reviewed here is strong on one specific question: how employer behavior shapes access to workplace training, and how that shapes career mobility. It is much thinner on other documented barriers, including credential requirements for regulated occupations, geographic constraints, age discrimination in hiring, or the income disruption that comes with stepping out of a current role to retrain.

Some target fields particularly regulated occupations in healthcare, education, and skilled trades may require formal credentials, licensure, or recognized certification that no employer training program will provide. Requirements vary by field, employer, and state, and workers exploring those paths should check directly with the relevant licensing board rather than assuming that closing a skills gap will be enough.

Career change challenges for workers, in other words, are plural. Employer training is a well-documented piece of that picture. It is not the whole picture.

Why employer support matters so much for career mobility

Most workplace training happens at work, during work hours. That fact shapes everything else.

An OECD report on adult learning published last year identifies employer support as one of the strongest predictors of whether a worker participates in any structured learning at all. When employer support is absent, workers are left to find time and funding independently. One in four adults reported hitting a barrier to adult learning in the prior 12 months, with lack of time due to work or family commitments and cost cited as the most common obstacles, per the same OECD report.

The value of training, when workers do get it, is not in question. Almost half of adult learners rate their training as very useful, and more than three-quarters find it at least moderately useful, according to OECD data. The constraint is access, not utility.

For a worker trying to change careers, the type of transition shapes how much employer support can realistically help. A move within the same broad field updating skills or demonstrating currency in a new role may be achievable through internal development programs or tuition assistance. A cross-industry pivot may require external training that an employer will or will not fund depending on how they view the investment. Moving into a field with formal credential requirements is a different problem entirely, one where employer support may cover part of the cost but often cannot substitute for licensure or accredited credentials.

Lack of employer training and career mobility: who gets left behind

Employer underinvestment in training follows a predictable logic. Training costs money upfront; the return plays out over time. If a worker leaves before that return materializes, the investment benefits a future employer, not the current one. In high-turnover environments, that calculation pushes employers toward doing less, per Indeed Hiring Lab. The result is a reinforcing cycle: less training limits advancement opportunities, which increases the likelihood workers leave, which further discourages investment.

That cycle produces a consistent inequality in who receives development support. Workers without a university degree are significantly less likely to receive employer-provided training than those with one, according to Indeed Hiring Lab's survey data. The education gap in training access spans 17 percentage points in the US, 18 in Germany and the UK, 19 in Japan, and 21 in Australia and France. Even in Ireland, which recorded the highest overall training rates of any country surveyed, a gap persists: 86% of bachelor's degree holders reported receiving employer-funded training, compared to 78% of those without a degree.

Japan offers a useful contrast. Only 22% of Japanese workers rated skill development as a personal priority, the lowest share across all eight countries surveyed. Indeed Hiring Lab analysts suggest this may reflect Japan's tradition of employer-led, firm-specific on-the-job training, where development is embedded in daily work rather than something workers feel they need to pursue independently. Workers may not flag it as a gap because the employer is already filling it. The contrast with US numbers shows that the divide between worker demand and employer delivery is not an inevitable feature of labor markets it reflects how different systems are organized.

For workers considering a career change, the pattern has a direct practical implication. Those who most need new skills to pivot workers in lower-credential roles, high-turnover sectors, or contract and temporary positions are, directionally, the least likely to receive employer support in building them.

What stops workers from switching careers: the contract type problem

The turnover-training cycle tightens further for workers in temporary or short-term roles. Indeed Hiring Lab describes this as a vicious cycle in which limited job security and limited training reinforce each other: employers who expect a worker to leave have little reason to invest in their development, and workers who receive no development have fewer grounds to stay.

The clearest evidence that this cycle can be broken comes from Spain. In 2022, the Spanish government introduced a labor reform that eliminated the most widely used type of temporary contract and made permanent, open-ended contracts the default. A working paper by economists from Indeed Hiring Lab, WZB Berlin Social Science Center, and Universidad Complutense de Madrid analyzed 3.1 million job postings on Indeed between 2018 and 2024, per Indeed Hiring Lab. Before the reform, occupations with the highest rates of temporary contract use were less than half as likely to include training offers as those with low temporary contract use 3% versus 8%. By 2024, that gap had been eliminated entirely.

The Spain finding does not establish that contract type is a stronger predictor of career development opportunity than job title or sector in every context. But it does show that employer training behavior responds to the stability of the employment relationship. When employers expected workers to stay, they invested in them. That is a meaningful data point for anyone evaluating a job offer.

Workers currently in temporary, contract, or casual roles who are trying to change careers face a structural constraint, not a motivation deficit. That distinction matters when deciding where to focus energy and money.

How to evaluate your career change before paying for training

The research does not produce a single solution, but it gives career changers a practical framework for assessing a transition before making expensive commitments.

Map the actual skills gap first. Pull up 10 to 15 current job postings in your target field and read them carefully enough to see patterns. Which qualifications appear in most listings as required? Which appear as preferred or nice-to-have? Those are different demands with different cost implications. Required credentials set the floor; preferred qualifications give you something to build toward after you are hired.

Find out whether an employer will help close it. Training budgets, tuition reimbursement, mentorship, and internal mobility pathways are all forms of employer investment worth asking about directly not just reading in the job description, but raising in interviews. Useful questions: Does the company fund external certifications? Is there a formal career development budget? What have recent internal promotions required in terms of credentials or experience? An employer willing to fund development materially affects what a transition will cost you, and that has real value when comparing offers.

Check what the credential is actually worth. If you are funding training out of pocket, compare accredited programs using verifiable outcome data. Determine whether the credential is required by employers in your target field, preferred but not required, or largely cosmetic in current hiring. Certification bodies and professional associations can tell you which credentials carry real weight. If the target role involves a regulated license, your state licensing board is the place to verify current requirements not the program website.

Build a realistic cost estimate before enrolling. Time and cost are the two most commonly cited barriers to adult learning, per OECD data. That estimate should include program cost, duration, any income impact if you need to reduce hours, and a realistic read on how long it typically takes new entrants in your target field to reach stable employment. If your current employer offers any funding, compare that against the full out-of-pocket alternative.

Treat development terms as negotiable. As of mid-2025, Ireland's labor market remained near record-low unemployment, with Indeed Hiring Lab noting that ongoing skills shortages gave workers significant use over pay and conditions. That use extends beyond salary. Training budgets, time allocated for external courses, tuition assistance, and clear advancement criteria are negotiable elements in many employment offers and workers who focus only on base salary at the offer stage tend to leave development commitments on the table.

What the evidence actually establishes

The case that employer training gaps are a real, documented constraint on career mobility is solid. The data are consistent across eight countries, reinforced by OECD adult learning research, and supported by a quasi-experimental study from Spain showing that employer training behavior shifts when the employment relationship becomes more stable.

What this body of research does not establish is that training access is the primary barrier for every worker in every type of career transition. Workers facing credential requirements in regulated fields, geographic constraints, hiring discrimination, or the financial pressure of income loss during a transition may find that addressing the training gap is necessary but nowhere near sufficient for making a move.

Start by pulling 10 to 15 current job postings in your target field and working through what they actually require. Identify which qualifications you already hold, which an employer might fund, and which you would need to finance independently. Then verify credential and licensing requirements directly with the relevant certification body or state licensing board before committing to any program. Real employer expectations not general career-change advice are where a realistic transition plan starts.