Employer Supported Training, 2006

Employers Continued to Achieve Tangible Benefits from Training

On the back of continued strong economic growth, 72% of private sector establishments provided structured training to their employees in 2006, unchanged from the previous year's high. Employers who trained their employees continued to achieve tangible benefits. The vast majority of these training-providing establishments indicated that training had a positive impact on worker productivity, quality of their products & services and customer satisfaction. These are the key findings from the Survey on Employer Supported Training, 2006 effectively covering 2,774 private sector establishments with at least 25 workers, which together employed some 764,669 employees.

2.   72% of private sector establishments provided structured training to their employees in 2006, unchanged from the previous year's high. This proportion exceeded substantially the 52% recorded in 2002, amid heightened cost pressures in the aftermath of the 2001 economic downturn.

3.   Training provision remained more prevalent in large establishments. 96% of establishments with 250 or more employees sent their staff for training, compared with 86% for establishments with 100-249 employees and 66% for those employing 25-99 employees. The provision of structured training varied substantially across industries. At the top end are industries with over 80% of employers providing structured training namely professional services (81%), financial services (85%), hotels (86%) and construction (91%) which has to send their foreign workers for mandatory safety orientation courses. At the opposite end are restaurants (39%) and retail trade (50%) which have a high reliance on temporary or part-time workers who are trained informally on-the-job.

4.   Training-providing establishments sent slightly more staff for training in 2006. 58% of employees in these establishments were sent for training, up from 56% in 2005, continuing the gradual increase since the data was first collected in 2003 (51%). Proportionately, more professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETS) (62%) were sent for training than production & related (57%) and clerical, sales & service workers (55%).

5.   Employers achieved tangible benefits from training their employees. The vast majority of the training-providing establishments indicated that training had a positive impact on worker productivity (88%), quality of their products & services (85%) and customer satisfaction (78%). Although the majority felt that training resulted in improvements in workers' skill (PMETs: 89%, non-PMETs: 90%) and motivation (PMETS: 71%, non-PMETs: 68%), they were less affirmative about its impact on wages (PMETs: 41%; non-PMETs: 47%) and promotion (PMETs: 46%; non-PMETs: 46%).

6.   With a slightly higher proportion of employees trained, spending per employee rose for the third straight year to $563. Training expenditure also formed a higher percentage of employee payroll (comprising staff remuneration and employers' CPF contribution), up from 1.3% in 2005 to 1.4% in 2006. After taking into account training incentives such as those provided from the Skills Development Fund (SDF), establishments incurred a training expenditure of $521 per employee or 1.4% of total payroll, also up from 1.2% in 2005.

For More Information

7.   The full survey report is available online at the Ministry of Manpower's website.