Alexandria, VA (PRLEAK ) November 13, 2009 – The 2009 State of the Industry Report released by The American Society for Training & Development (ASTD) indicates that investments in employee learning and development stood at around $1,068 per employee despite the challenges of a difficult economy during 2008. The report is a detailed finding on training and development investments, practices, and trends for 2008.

Business leaders may have reduced spending, nevertheless, they continued to make substantial investments in employee learning and development. Average expenditure per employee was only down 3.8 per cent from 2007, which stood at $1,110. Learning professionals took on more responsibilities and increased the number of employees they were responsible for in their quest for ways to operate efficiently. 36.3 hours were used by employees for formal learning content, as against 37.4 hours in 2007. This mere drop of 2.9% indicates that a meaningful amount of resources have been allocated to employees for workplace learning and performance.

Data was compiled from 301 organizations, including members of the ASTD Benchmarking Forum and ASTD BEST Award winners in the 2009 State of the Industry Report. The report has been produced for over ten years and aims at providing insightful and actionable findings on strategic and operational activities of learning functions worldwide.

Other findings in the ASTD's 2009 State of the Industry Report are a $88.59 billion spending by U. S. organizations on internal learning functions. External services saw an allocation of $45.48 billion by U.S. organizations. Learning expenditures increased by 2.24 percent from 2007. Learning budget allocation for eternal services was at 22.0 percent, a drop from 25.2 percent in 2007. The average number of employees per learning staff member was up at 253 in 2008, as compared to 227 the previous year.

The 2009 State of the Industry Report is an indicator that learning professionals were able to adapt during a tougher economic climate and despite having fewer resources, increased the number of formal learning opportunities. This also proves that business leaders are aware of the necessity to meet financial and operational commitments in order to leverage human capital to the maximum. Details of the report are available at www.astd.org.

About ASTD:
ASTD (American Society for Training & Development) is the largest professional association in the field of training and development. ASTD's members work as independent consultants and suppliers, with organizations in over 100 countries, in the private and public sectors. Members connect locally in 133 U.S. chapters and with 30 international partners.