The State of the Industry Report is ASTD's annual review of trends in

workplace learning and performance.  Sponsored

by Allied Research Corporation and SkillSoft, this years report includes

data from ASTD BEST Awards Winners, ASTD Forum Members and other organizations

from 2002 to date.  The 2011 State of the

Industry Report is available on ASTDs Bookstore

and is free for ASTD members.

The 2011 State of the Industry Report findings from more than 400 responding

organizations across all major industries show that overall, organizations

continue to be committed to the delivery of knowledge and the development of

employees at every level. Organizations are just as committed as ever to

learning and development (L&D).  ASTD

estimates that U.S. organizations spent $1228 per learner on employee learning

and development in 2010. Nearly two-thirds of that was spent on the internal

learning function, such as staff salaries and internal development costs. The

remainder was allocated to external services such as workshops, vendors and

external events. 

The direct expenditure for learning as a percentage of

payroll has fluctuated between 2 and 2.3 percent since 2001. This year,

however, the consolidated percentage increased from 2.2 to 2.7 percent, the

highest direct expenditure as a percentage of payroll recorded by ASTD for the

SOIR. While the learning hours used by organizations remained stable in 2010,

the associated cost per learning hour used increased by 14.2 percent, from $63

in 2009 to nearly $72 in 2010The report also covers 12 content areas. The

leading content area for the consolidated group is management and supervisory

learning. Manager and supervisory content also registered the greatest

percentage increase change, increasing from 10.4 percent in 2009 to 12.8

percent of the content delivered in 2010. The research also found that overall,

many organizations are investing in technology-based delivery systems and

methods, and the growing use of technology to deliver contentespecially through

social media tools.

ASTD encourages readers to use this report as a benchmarking

tool. Typically this report is used by executives and managers to better

understand how learning directly affects employee and organizational

performance, and to help learning professionals support and defend the learning

functions importance and value to improving the bottom line.