75.4% of Employers With 1 to 4 People Said None of Their Employees Received Training. At 20 to 49: 40.4%

Census asked employers what share of their people received training. At the smallest firms, three in four said nobody did.

Three in four of the smallest employers trained no one

The survey asked each employer what share of its employees received training, with one answer allowed. At firms with 1 to 4 employees, 75.4% said none did. That is about 1.13 million of the 1.50 million firms of that size that answered. The share falls at each step up: 59.5% at 5 to 9 employees, 49.2% at 10 to 19, and 40.4% at 20 to 49. It falls again at 50 to 99 (32.5%), just clear of the survey’s margin of error. At 100 to 249 it is 22.8%, which cannot be told apart from 50 to 99.

At firms with 1 to 4 employees, three in four said none of their people received training.

Training nobody, or training nearly everybody

The other end of the same question is the firms where 76% to 100% of employees received training. That share rises as the other falls: 16.7% at 1 to 4 employees, 23.1% at 5 to 9, 27.7% at 10 to 19 and 31.7% at 20 to 49. Up to 20 to 49, firms that trained no one outnumber firms that trained nearly everyone. At 100 to 249 it is the other way round, 38.8% against 22.8%. At 50 to 99 the two are level within the survey’s margins.

What the firms that do train, train for

Firms that trained anyone were asked which areas the training covered, and could tick more than one. At 20 to 49 employees, safety training, OSHA or other, led every other area at 64.5%. At 1 to 4, four other areas ranked above it, at 32.7%; the top two there were other government-required training (38.1%) and sales and customer service (37.6%), level with each other. A larger share of firms with 20 to 49 employees covered each named area, and on average they ticked about 3.2 areas against 2.3 at 1 to 4, counting the shares the survey publishes.

What to take from this if you run the place

In a business of three or four people, much of what gets taught may happen informally, with the owner showing someone how it is done. The survey cannot say whether the firms answering ‘none’ counted that, and it does not show that formal training makes a small business run better. What it does show is how many of the smallest employers report no training at all, and how far that share drops by the time a firm has 20 to 49 employees. A fair question for Monday: if you were out for a month, which job in your business has only ever been learned by watching you, and who would you teach it to first?

Four limits worth holding. The survey covers employer firms; businesses with no one on the payroll are left out. Roughly half the firms in each size band answered these questions, and the shares are of the firms that answered. The question asks what share of employees received training; it does not define training or say over what period. And the survey records what firms did, not why, or what it changed.

Published by The Lonely Entrepreneur — the community and coaching platform for entrepreneurs who are building alone. lonelyentrepreneur.com

This article is for educational purposes and is not a substitute for professional financial or legal advice.