Job Training Lags for Rural Workers

Post-school training is an important component of the rural workforce skill development system, but, in 1991, just 40 percent of the nonmetro workforce had received training on their current jobs. Less educated, minority, and southern rural workers were particularly unlikely to he enhancing their skills. Between 1983 and 1991, the training rate for nonmetro workers rose modestly, but fell behind the more rapidly rising metro training rate, suggesting that fewer rural firms had adopted the high-skill production strategies widely believed to be of increasing importance for competitive success. Lower rural training reflects both the specialization of rural firms in more routine products and technologies and the cost disadvantages of rural firms and communities as suppliers of job training