The Impact of the Recession on Training

From the CIPD's The 2009 Learning and Development survey:

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"Unsurprisingly, only 11% of respondents feel that the economic circumstances facing their organisation in the past 12 months have improved. Forty per cent report facing similar circumstances to last year, while almost half state that their economic/funding situation has worsened (46%).

Over half (57%) of organisations with more than 5,000 employees feel that economic conditions are getting worse, compared with 39% of those with 250 or fewer people.

However, the worsening economic situation does not appear to have impacted as severely on the funds available to learning and development teams as might be expected. Around half (51%) of respondents feel that funds for learning and development have stayed the same for the past year, with around a third (32%) saying that these funds have decreased.

Many respondents remain fairly optimistic about the future, with just under half (45%) agreeing that learning and development funds will remain the same in the next 12 months.

Encouragingly, 76% agree that ‘learning and development in my organisation is seen as an important part of business improvement’."

The rest of the research is here.