Organizations are increasingly dependent on skilled technical and professional employees. There are many ways that skills training programs can be categorized. We organize our discussion around three categories: basic skills/literacy education, technical training, and interpersonal skills training. Basic skills/literacy education refers to training that focuses on upgrading the reading, writing, and computation skills needed to function in most any job.

Technical training refers to training that involves the process of upgrading a wide range of technical skills (such as computer skills) needed by particular individuals in an organization. Interpersonal skills training refers to training that focuses on an individual’s relationships with others, including interpersonal topics like communication and teamwork. Training in all of these areas can be critical to organizations.

A major problem facing employers today is the skills gap. In the United States, the skills gap is the result of at least three factors. The first it the skill level achieved by many high school and college graduates. As the number of racial minorities in the U.S. labor market continues to grow, many of these new workers will be immigrants who lack proficiency in English, and who also may lack basic skills.

The increased sophistication of jobs, particularly as a result of the information technology explosion, affects almost every industry. The trend toward increasingly powerful computer technology and software systems has led to a proliferation of high-technology applications, including robotics, decision-support systems, e-mail systems, and communications networks. Continuous technical training will likely be necessary for those occupations that rely on information technology.

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