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Published: 23 May 2018

EUR 551 per employee on course training

Corrected on 30 March 2020. The figure was corrected.

Private sector enterprises spent, on average, EUR 551 per employee on course training, which is four per cent less than in 2010. In 2015, the share of training costs of labour costs was 1.1 per cent in Finland, which is 0.3 percentage points lower than in 2010 when the corresponding data were last collected. The data appear from Statistics Finland's CVTS, Continuing Vocational Training statistics.

Share of course training costs in labour costs by industry and main industry in 2010 and 2015, %. The figure was corrected  on 30 March 2020.

Share of course training costs in labour costs by industry and main industry in 2010 and 2015, %. The figure was corrected  on 30 March 2020.

The share of training costs of labour costs in the main industry of services was 1.2 per cent in 2015 and slightly lower in the main industry of manufacturing, 1.0 per cent. In the main industry of manufacturing, the share of training costs of labour costs decreased by 0.3 percentage points from 2010 and in the main industry of services by 0.2 percentage points.

In these statistics, the costs were only collected for course training because most enterprises have a monitoring system for training days and costs. In addition to course training, employees also participate in other training than course training. Especially online studying and studying while working have increased since 2010. For these formats of training, only the number of participants was asked, so there are no volume data on the number of training hours or training costs for such training (see release on 18 October 2017).

In these statistics, the costs of course training include remuneration costs during training, charges and fees paid to training organisers, participants’ accommodation and travel costs, pay for internal training personnel, costs for premises, tools, equipment and materials, as well as contributions to training funds or memberships in employers' unions that include training services, etc. An enterprise can also receive support for training it arranges, e.g. tax deductions, support from various funds or central government’s labour market training support. The total training costs comprise the above-mentioned cost items from which the share of support received is deducted (Appendix table 2).

The training costs per employee grow as the enterprise size grows. While the training costs in enterprises with 10 to 49 employees were EUR 485 per employee, in enterprises with over 250 employees, they were EUR 628. This is due to the fact that a larger share of employees in large enterprises participate in training than in smaller enterprises. There is not much difference in training costs per participant between different sized enterprises.

Training costs per participant in 2015 was EUR 1,257. The training costs per participant and employee varied greatly by industry. The costs were lowest in the manufacture of textiles and wearing apparel, EUR 169 per employee. The costs were highest in energy supply, water supply and waste management, EUR 1,287 per employee (Appendix table 1).

One-half of training costs are remuneration costs

The cost structure of course training has remained fairly similar. The biggest individual cost item in training was employees’ remuneration costs during training, and the second biggest were fees paid to the arrangers of the training. Remuneration costs during training formed 49.9 per cent and fees paid to the arrangers 40.4 per cent of the total training costs in 2015 (Appendix table 2). The share of remuneration costs during training and fees paid to the training arrangers of overall costs has grown somewhat from 2010.

The survey covers enterprises in the private sector with at least ten employees in 2015, excluding agriculture and forestry, education, and health and social work. In Finland, 1,579 enterprises that represent a total of 17,359 enterprises and their 1,050,000 employees responded to the data collection. The data collection was conducted in the same form in 30 European countries.

The data collection for the statistics is conducted approximately every five years and it is used to describe employer-sponsored training, the numbers of participants in course training, and the number of personnel training days received, the content and arrangers of the training, as well as the costs incurred from the training. In addition to course format training, the survey also examines other training formats, enterprises' training strategies and the obstacles for organising training.


Source: CVTS, Continuing vocational training survey, Statistics Finland

Inquiries: Tarja Seppänen 029 551 3220, cvts@stat.fi

Director in charge: Jari Tarkoma


Updated 23.5.2018

Referencing instructions:

Official Statistics of Finland (OSF): CVTS, Continuing vocational training [e-publication].
ISSN=1798-0003. Contents and costs of training 2015. Helsinki: Statistics Finland [referred: 28.3.2024].
Access method: http://www.stat.fi/til/cvts/2015/02/cvts_2015_02_2018-05-23_tie_001_en.html