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Bureau of Labor Statistics Report to the Senate Appropriations Committee

on a Survey on Employer Provided Training

Design and Cost Options

The following report outlines cost and design options for a new Survey on Employer Provided 

Training (SEPT) in response to language included in the Senate Appropriations Committee 

report that accompanied the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018 (Pub.L. 115-141). The 

Senate report directed the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to “provide a report not later than 90 

days after enactment of this act on the cost and design options for a new survey on employerprovided training.” 

The design options laid out in this report build upon BLS research sponsored by the Department 

of Labor in Fiscal Year (FY) 2016 and FY 2017 for BLS to begin exploring the feasibility of 

developing an updated SEPT. Reports summarizing this research are available upon request. 

The SEPT development work recommended the following design options to collect incidence of 

training: an online employee survey and an online employer survey, as well as a 

recommendation to develop and test a survey using an employee log in order to collect 

information on the amount of time spent in training-related activities. While the employer and 

employee surveys could be done independently, all three surveys are required to provide a full 

picture of employer-provided training. The data would be collected over the course of a year, 

with results released annually in the year following collection.

At the end of the FY 2017 research, BLS developed draft employer and employee survey 

instruments, and proposed sample designs. Should funding be available to carry out these

surveys, BLS estimates it would produce the first estimates within 4 years. Specifically, 

additional research is required to finalize the survey instruments, design and test the new 

employee log, complete the Office of Management and Budget clearance process as required by 

the Paperwork Reduction Act, collect the data over a 12-month period, and analyze and publish 

the results. Additionally, BLS will have to develop data collection procedures and materials, and 

program survey questions into electronic data collection instruments.

For the two survey designs detailed below, the sample sizes identified were selected to strike 

what BLS believes to be a reasonable balance between cost and publication objectives. The cost 

estimates are based upon fielding the surveys annually to ensure that the data are timely and to 

facilitate identifying changes and trends in employer-provided training. Reducing the level of 

detail or survey periodicity would reduce the estimated costs, but not proportionately, due to 

relatively fixed infrastructure and maintenance and development costs.
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Data from employers

Employer Survey (Incidence – proportion of employers providing training)

To collect the incidence of employer provided training, BLS recommends an online 

survey sent to approximately 20,700 establishments, stratified by industry and 

employment size class. The survey will ask respondents to indicate the formal training 

that their company sponsored, funded or provided for its employees in the prior 12 

months, as well as the training delivery method, training topic, and training source. 

Research results indicated the employers would not reliably be able to provide 

information about informal training, and that the records companies keep on training 

often are decentralized and vary dramatically by company type, company employment 

size, and training topic. 

The survey aims to produce the following estimates within a margin of error of three 

percent:

- Proportion of employers providing formal training by industry (14 sectors)

- Proportion of employers providing formal training by employment size class (5 size 

classes, the largest being 500+ employees)

- Proportion of employers providing formal training by delivery method (traditional 

classroom, other in person, online, combination, other)

- Proportion of employers providing formal training by topic (13 topics)

- Proportion of employers providing formal training by source (within company, 

community college, other academic institution, private vendors, trade associations, 

labor unions, other) 

The cost estimate for developing and then annually fielding an ongoing employer survey 

of this size is approximately $7 million per year, with data to be published within 4 years.

Data from employees

Employee Survey (Incidence – proportion of employees receiving training)

To collect the incidence of employer provided training, BLS recommends an online 

survey sent to approximately 18,500 household respondents (those who indicate they are 

currently employed, from the Current Population Survey). The survey will ask 

respondents to indicate the formal training that their company sponsored, funded or 

provided for them in the last 12 months and the informal training they received from their 

company in the last one month. 

The survey will aim to produce the following estimates within a margin of error of three 

percent:
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- Proportion of employees receiving formal training by delivery method (traditional 

classroom, other in person, online, combination, other)

- Proportion of employees receiving formal training by occupation (5 categories)

- Proportion of employees receiving informal training by delivery method (mentoring, 

job shadowing, demonstrations)

- Proportion of employees receiving informal training by occupation (5 categories)

- Proportion of employees receiving formal or informal training by age, sex, race, 

Hispanic origin, and educational attainment

The cost estimate for developing and then annually fielding an ongoing employee survey 

of this size is approximately $5.5 million per year, with data to be published within 

4 years.

Employee Log (Intensity – amount of time spent in training-related activities)

Finally, BLS research indicated that neither employees nor employers were able to recall 

reliably the duration of training events, for either formal or informal training. To capture 

the amount of time spent in training, BLS recommends that after completing the online 

survey, employees be asked to keep a log of all training they receive during a specified

period. This log has not yet been developed or tested; a feasibility test is needed to 

determine how many employees will complete the log after the survey and the ability of 

employees to complete the log accurately.

As noted above, previous development work did not include design or testing of an 

employee log. Estimated costs of fielding such a log would be dependent upon the 

results of testing once design is completed.