After rebounding last year, the training industry hit a bump in the road in 2012 as it followed the downward economic trend that dogged the U.S.: Total 2012 U.S. training expenditures—including payroll and spending on external products and services—fell 6.5 percent to $55.8 billion, according to Training magazine's 2012 Training Industry Report. Some 65 percent of organizations either saw their training budget remain the same or decrease in 2012. Training payroll increased substantially, from $31.3 billion to $36.4 billion, but spending on outside products and services decreased $1.7 billion to $7.4 billion.
The training budget figure was calculated by projecting the average training budget to a weighted universe of companies, using a Dun & Bradstreet database available through Hoovers of U.S. organizations with more than 100 employees. It is interesting to note that although small companies have the smallest annual budgets, there are so many of them that they account for 62 percent of the total budget for training expenditures.
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