The Employer Attitudes and Motivations to Learning and Training survey, conducted by the Industry Training Board and Sector Skills Council for construction, asked more than 1,500 construction employers how the economic downturn impacted on their training provision last year.
The results show that job-specific training was hardest hit, with 16% of all employers cutting back. Health and safety training was also impacted, with 8% of employers reducing their training support in this field. Only 2% of employers cut back on management training.
Despite the figures, the research found that employers recognize the importance of training - 24% said that improving staff skills and competencies has become even more important post-recession.
Responding to the findings, CITB-ConstructionSkills chief executive Mark Farrar said: “As a cost cutting measure in times of economic hardship, training budgets are sadly often the first to suffer. Although recognition of the importance of staff skills is high, the research shows that training levels could fall further still.
“For these reasons, CITB-ConstructionSkills will be doing all it can to help and support construction employers in continuing to up-skill and train their workforce - ensuring that they have right skills, in the right place and at the right time.”
There were geographical differences in the training cuts. Worst affected was the West Midlands, where approximately 39% of companies scaled back training, followed by 37% in the northwest and 35% in Scotland.
Some 10% of companies actually increased training in 2010.
The results of the Employer Attitudes and Motivations to Learning and Training survey have been issued ahead of the ConstructionSkills Network (CSN) – a report on future training requirements of the UK construction industry that provides a consensus view of the current and future skills training needs. Results of the CSN will be issued later this month.
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