DELAYED FORMAL ON-THE-JOB TRAINING

The fact that an employer and employee incur a loss when a trained wor ker changes jobs provides an incentive for on-the-jab training to be s electively provided to workers who are less likely to change jobs. Con sequently, if there is belated information about employees' future mob ility, it may be optimal to delay training, even if doing so means for going the returns to training during the early part of the employment relationship. The training literature, however, assumes that training is concentrated at the beginning of the employment relationship. The a uthors of this paper examine the relationship between tenure and the p robability of ever having received training using data from the Curren t Population Survey and the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth. Th eir findings indicate that delayed formal training is the norm rather than the exception.