Page 55 - Bloomberg Businessweek-October 29, 2018
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Bloomberg Businessweek             October 29, 2018
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             E              Companies Give Worker

                                 Training Another Try

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             S                       A tight labor market forces businesses to spend

                                           more to develop their employees’ skills



                         Economists love worker training, but  companies are   Now, though, corporate attitudes appear to
                         often reluctant to provide it. The benefits of training   be shifting, albeit gradually. While the Census
                         can walk out the door if newly skilled workers are   Bureau hasn’t reprised its count of employer-
                         poached by a competitor. “I call it the ‘I drink your   provided training since 2008, the Association for
                         milkshake’ problem,” says Jake Schwartz, chief exec-  Talent Development, in a survey focused mainly  ILLUSTRATION BY AISHA FRANZ. *TRAINING RECEIVED IN THE YEAR PRIOR TO THE SURVEY, WHICH WAS ADMINISTERED IN 2012 OR IN SOME CASES
                         utive officer and co-founder of General Assembly,   on advanced economies, found that direct train-
                         a computer- coding boot camp acquired this year   ing expenditures rose from $1,081 per employee
                          by Switzerland-based staffing firm Adecco Group   in 2009 (the first year of the survey) to $1,273 in
                          AG. In the years before the global financial crisis,   2016. The U.S. ranks near the top of the global
                          companies steadily decreased training. The U.S.   heap, with 66 percent of workers receiving train-
                         Census Bureau found that just 11 percent of work-  ing from employers in the past year, according to  2015. DATA: ORGANIZATION FOR ECONOMIC COOPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT
                         ers received employer-sponsored training in 2008,   the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
                         down from 19 percent in 1996. When the financial   Development (see chart).
                         crisis hit, throwing millions out of work, training   Near-record-low unemployment is one big
                         seemed less important than ever: Why spend the   reason companies are recommiting to train-
                         money when you can pick up the skills you need   ing. With a U.S. jobless rate of just 3.7 percent
             Edited by
           Cristina Lindblad  from the bountiful ranks of the jobless?  in September and more than 7 million unfilled
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