Firms are spending three per cent of payroll costs on training, compared with only 1.5 per cent in 1994, according to a major new survey by the Irish Business and Employers' Confederation.

Some 1,292 companies employing 196,695 people are covered by the survey. It found firms were spending £700 million (€889 million) a year, compared with £500 million by the State training agency FAS. However most FAS training is targeted primarily at the unemployed and other marginalised groups outside the workplace.

Firms with high investment programmes generally seemed to spend most on training. In the manufacturing sector the highest level of training expenditure was in the electronics industry at 3.45 per cent. In the services sector the highest level of expenditure on training was in the financial services sector at 3.99 per cent.

Training expenditure was slightly higher in foreign owned firms at 3.17 per cent. Forty companies, 5 per cent of respondents, identified no expenditure on training. Ninety-five per cent of these companies had less than 100 employees.

The report also found that the average number of days spent training per employee per annum was 5.11 days. Some 18 per cent of firms provided more than 10 days training per annum.

More than 80 per cent of firms had a training programme/plan in place and 70 per cent conducted a training audit of their employees.

Some 46 per cent of firms indicated that the type of training they undertook had changed in the last three years.