A framework for assessing the economic benefits and costs of workplace literacy training. Paper presented at the conference on Workplace learning: the strategic advantage

I am using the economic cost concept of opportunity costs. A basic skills deficient worker may be paid $8.001 an hour and be productive enough to produce $8.50 worth of product per hour. However, a trained employee or a younger employee may be willing to work for $8.00 an hour and be able to produce $10.00 worth of product. The opportunity cost of not training the worker would be $1.50 per hour even though the firm would not be losing money on the worker