On-The-Job Training of New Hires

Abstract

A growing number of commentators are pointing to employer sponsored training as a critical ingredient in a nation’s competitiveness. American employers appear to devote less time and resources to the training of entry level blue collar, clerical and service employees than employers in Genoany and Japan (Limprecht and Hayes 1982, Mincer and Higuchi 1988, Koike 1984, Noll et al 1984, Wiedemold-Fritz 1985). In the 1983 Current Population Survey, only 33 percent of workers with 1 to 5 years of tenure reported having received skill improvement training from their current employer (Hollenbeck and Wilkie 1985). Analyzing 1982 NLS-Youth data, Parsons (1984) reports that only 34 to 40 percellt of the young workers in clerical, operative, service and laborer jobs reponed that it was “very true” that “the skills [I am] learning would be valuable in getting a better job.” The payoffs to getting jobs which offer training appear to be very high, however. In Parson’s study, having a high learning job rather than a no learning job in 1979 increased a male youth’s 1982 wage rate by 13.7 percent. While the 1980 job had no such effect, the 1981 job raised wages by 7.2 percent when it was a high learning job rather than a no learning job.

If the Germans had any secret weapon in the post-1973 economic difficulties, it is the technical competence of their work force, which is in turn the product of their apprenticeship system.

– –Limprecht and Hayes, 1982, p.139.

I think that the Japanese education system is not very good .... employer training is much more effective

– –Yutaka Kosai, President, Japan Center for Economic Research, 1989

The heart of this new (flexible I manufacturing landscape is the management of manufacturing projects: selecting them, creating teams to work on them, and managing workers’ intellectual development.

– –Ramchandran Jaikumar, 1986, p. 75.