According to an annual compendium of training, budgets, staffing, and programs in
300 U.S. firms that come from a representative cross-section of different industries
and company sizes (O’Leonard, 2013), annual spending on HRD has changed dra-
matically since the depths of the Great Recession. In 2008 and 2009, for example,
annual training expenditures plummeted by 11% in each of those 2 years. It rebounded
a positive 2%, on average, in 2010, but then rose sharply, increasing by 10% in 2011,
and then by another 12% in 2012. The lesson? Firms cut training expenditures, along
with many other forms of corporate expenditures, dramatically during the Great
Recession, but as the economy has begun to rebound slowly, expenditures on HRD
simply could not wait. At least for full-time, core employees in today’s globally inter-
connected and interdependent economy, HRD is not a competitive nicety. It’s a com-
petitive necessity and firms know it.