The Association for Talent Development's (ATD) 2015 State of the Industry report found that, in 2014, organizations on average spent $1,228.70 per employee on direct learning expenditures. This represents just over a 1.7 percent increase from 2013, when the average spent per employee was $1,207.73. The increase in spending outpaces the average inflation rate of slightly under 1.4 percent seen in advanced economies in 2014, based on the International Monetary Fund's World Economic Outlook 2015.
The average number of learning hours used per employee also saw an upward shift, reaching 32.4 hours in 2014, compared with 31.5 hours in 2013. This is the second consecutive year this indicator has seen an increase in both the average direct learning expenditure and the average number of learning hours used per employee.
Technology increasingly influences every aspect of the workplace, and learning delivery is no exception. In 2014, 41.1 percent of learning hours were delivered using technology-based methods, compared with 38.4 percent in 2013. Among technology-based delivery methods, the self-paced online (networked) method is the most prevalent. However, mobile learning, which is delivered via mobile devices such as smartphones, is still not widely used; slightly more than 2 percent of learning hours used in 2014 were delivered using mobile devices.
The State of the Industry report is ATD's definitive review of training and development trends. A total of 336 organizations of all sizes representing a wide variety of industries participated in this year's survey. The full report is available free to ATD members.
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