A second study of the quality of training in SMEs looks at three sectors in newer Member States
Small firms, which predominate in all European economies, are major drivers of employment, social integration and innovation. Despite their social and economic importance, the increased demands of globalisation and the intense competition generated by the financial crisis SMEs tend to carry out little training for their staff.  In the absence of quantity, do they at least ensure   a high enough quality of training?

This new study  - Quality in VET in European SMEs A review of the food processing, retail and tourism sectors in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Romania and Slovakia -  sets out to investigate and compare training quality in small companies in specific sectors - food processing, retail distribution and tourism – of four of the newer Member States. It places particular emphasis on ‘sector logic’, i.e.  the sectors’ special features, and the national, cultural and institutional environment; and compares between the findings from this group of countries and those of a previous Cedefop study covering three ‘older’ Member States (Germany, Ireland and Greece).