Higher costs for employee training

The amount spent per employee doing a company course was significantly higher in 2005 than in 1999. At the same time, fewer employees went on company courses or training schemes in 2005 than in 1999, and the number of course hours per participant decreased substantially.

More spent per participant

At around 3.1 billion euro, total spending on courses and training schemes provided by private sector companies with ten or more employees was at about the same level in 2005 as in 1999. However, for this amount fewer participants spent fewer hours on courses in 2005.
Spending per participant was 2,360 euro in that year, nearly 400 euro more than in 1999.

Spending per hour of training rose by 60 percent from 1999 to 2005, from 41 to 66 euro. This is a substantially larger increase than accounted for by inflation, which was about 16 percent in this period.

Costs per course hour

Fewer hours spent on courses

Just over 1.3 million employees in the private sector did a course in 2005, compared with  nearly 1,6 million in 1999. The number of hours spent on courses, too, decreased, from just over 75 million in 1999 to nearly 47 million in 2005. This is comes to a drop in the number of hours per participant from 48 to 36 on average.

Fewer course hours were provided in nearly all company size classes and sectors of industry. Only in hotels and restaurants did the number of course hours rise slightly.

Course hours per participant

Present knowledge and skills often sufficient

As employees already often have the knowledge and skills required by the company, 55 percent of companies offered no or fewer opportunities for training than they had intended to. Thirty percent of companies reported that high pressure of work and limited time available contributed to this. Less than 20 percent of companies cited high costs as the reason for not providing training courses.

Reasons for not providing training or providing less training opportunities

Jack Claessen and Jeroen Nieuweboer