Dive Brief:
- Workers feel they prioritize training more than employers do, a perception gap that can harm retention in the long run, according to an April 14 analysis from Indeed Hiring Lab.
- In the U.S., 67% of employees surveyed said learning was a personal priority, while only 48% said it was a priority for their employer.
- Notably, workers without a bachelor’s degree were “substantially less likely” to have access to employer-provided training, potentially in part because employers do not expect workers in high-turnover jobs — which often do not require a degree — to stay, according to Indeed.
Dive Insight:
Indeed’s analysis examined the effects of Spain’s labor market reform from 2022, which restricted use of temporary contracts in hiring workers.
Occupations that were most dependent on temporary labor saw a major shift to permanent hiring — which also led to large increases in training offers, “providing direct evidence that firms invest more in workers they expect to keep,” Indeed said.
Indeed found the same pattern — workers who already held high qualifications were more likely to receive additional training from employers — in a variety of other countries, according to the analysis; “These patterns suggest that employer-provided training may be reinforcing, rather than narrowing, existing gaps in the labor market.”
Various studies and reports have shown that workers value training, and many cite it as a reason they would stay at an employer for a long time. However, turnover remains an obstacle when it comes to training front-line workers, according to a 2025 report from the Association of Talent Development, making on-the-job training hard to offer in the first place.
Front-line workers also are increasingly hard to retain, especially since many HR-led company programs tend to be created with desk workers in mind, according to a November 2025 Josh Bersin report. For training to work, it needs to be targeted to those specific jobs, the report said — which could, in turn, help retention.