6362.0 - Employer Training Expenditure and Practices, Australia, 2001-02  
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 02/04/2003   
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MEDIA RELEASE

April 2, 2003
Embargoed 11:30am (AEST)
34/2003

Employers spend more on training

Australian employers are spending more on training their employees, according to figures released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

Employers reported a total of $3,652.8 million in net direct expenditure on structured training during the 2001-02 financial year. This represented an increase of 52% compared to 1996.

Gross expenditure on training comprised $1,036.7 million in trainers' wages and salaries and $2,981.5 million in other direct structured training costs, such as fees to external training providers and expenditure on training facilities and equipment. This expenditure was offset by $365.5 million in training-related subsidies and payments.

Net direct training expenditure averaged $458 per employee and represented 1.3% of total gross wages and salaries.

Strong growth in training expenditure partly reflected an increase in the proportion of employers providing training. In 1997, 61% of Australian employers provided or supported training for their employees, by June 2002 this had increased to 81%.

Growth was reported Australia-wide in both the proportion of employers that provided structured training (from 35% in 1997 to 41% in 2002) and those that provided unstructured training (from 53% to 79%).

Structured training was most commonly delivered using external workshops, lectures and tutorials (76% of employers that provided structured training), followed by structured on-the-job training (55%) and internal workshops, lectures and tutorials (42%). The majority of employers that provided structured training used external training providers for some, or all, of that training (92%).

Around one in five employers (19%) did not provide any training to their employees. The majority of these employers (80%) indicated that this was because their employees were already adequately trained.

Employers were less likely to provide training to workers who were not employees, such as contractors, temporary agency workers and volunteers. Less than one quarter of employers (22%) with these types of workers provided them with structured training, and less than half (45%) provided unstructured training.

The Training Expenditure and Practices survey was conducted by the ABS with full funding from the Australian National Training Authority.

Further information is in Employer Training Expenditure and Practices, Australia (cat. no. 6362.0).