Forty-three percent of firms surveyed by Training magazine offered remedial education, defined in its broadest sense, including a host of academic skills. Limiting the definition just to reading, writing, arithmetic, and English as a second language, the magazine found that 22 percent of employers provided these services. Corporate training is an enormous enterprise that employs thousands of Americans. One company with a substantial investment in it is Manpower Inc., the largest temp agency in the United States. About one million people each year get job assignments from Manpower, and many of those workers go through a company-run program that provides training in technical and computer skills, communication, customer service, and quality control.
Some companies pay the tuition for their employees to attend community colleges or night school.
Other firms contract out their training needs to private trainers. Companies such as Berlitz International have long provided corporate training in such areas as foreign languages, money management, business communication, and computer software. I recently visited a new training company in Greensboro, North Carolina, that uses interactive computer systems to train local employees faster and cheaper than nearby colleges can. While improving the language skills of many employees, the program has cost the company little. Both tutors and students work on language instruction on their own time.