With employer-paid training, workers have the

Question

With employer-paid training, workers have the potential to become more productive not only in their present employment but also in any number of jobs with different employers. To increase the productivity of their workforce, many firms are planning to maintain or even increase their investments in worker training. But some training experts object that if a trained worker is hired away by another firm, the employer that paid for the training has merely subsidized a competitor. They note that such hiring has been on the rise in recent years.

Which of the following would, if true, contribute most to defeating the training experts’ objection to the firms’ strategy?

A. Firms that promise opportunities for advancement to their employees get, on average, somewhat larger numbers of job applications from untrained workers than do firms that make no such promise.

B. In many industries, employees who take continuing-education courses are more competitive in the job market.

C. More and more educational and training institutions are offering reduced tuition fees to firms that subsidize worker training.

D. Research shows that workers whose training is wholly or partially subsidized by their employer tend to get at least as much training as do workers who pay for all their own training.

E. For most firms that invest in training their employees, the value added by that investment in employees who stay exceeds the value lost through other employees’ leaving to work for other companies

This answer works best, I guess

ID - CR08017

KarishmaB · Accepted Answer

Responding to a pm:

- With employer-paid training, workers become more productive.
- To increase the productivity, many firms are planning to maintain or even increase their investments in worker training. 
- But some training experts object that if a trained worker is hired away by another firm, the employer that paid for the training has merely subsidized a competitor. 
- They note that such hiring has been on the rise in recent years.

What is the "training experts’ objection to the firms’ strategy"?
That workers leave after training and in effect, a competitor gets a productive worker without paying for it. So it may not be a good idea to pay for worker training.

What will defeat the objection?

If overall, the company sees a net positive return i.e. paying for worker training is worth it for the company then the objection is defeated. That is what (E) says:
- For most firms that invest in training their employees, the value added by that investment in employees who stay exceeds the value lost through other employees’ leaving to work for other companies

The net value that the company gets is positive. The employees who stay more than make up for the value lost. So it makes sense for the company to invest in worker training.

CrackverbalGMAT · Answer

Here is the simplified argument --

if a trained worker is hired away by another firm, the employer that paid for the training has merely subsidized a competitor --> training experts object to increasing investments in worker training.

Let us take a look at the answer options --

Option A - Incorrect

If they get larger number of untrained workers, then more money needs to be invested in training them (and very likely these people after receiving the training move on to competitor companies). This strengthens the training experts' objection.

Option B - Incorrect

more competitive => more likely to switch to other companies. this also strengthens the argument.

Option C - Incorrect

But still the investment that the firms made is lost if employees jump jobs.

Option D - Incorrect

If they get the same amount of training, companies could ask the employees to fund their own training. No need to invest in worker training.

Option E - Correct answer

this means that even if some employees quit, the investment generates some positive value. this directly attacks the training experts' conclusion that investment in worker training is pointless.

sevenplusplus · Answer

Well CRs are very confusing for me to wrap my head around -- not sure when to take an extra leap of judgement and when to stick to the exact argument.

Here is the argument:
But some training experts object that if a trained worker is hired away by another firm, the employer that paid for the training has merely subsidized a competitor. They note that such hiring has been on the rise in recent years.

Looking strictly at the argument, it does not talk about "net value" from the investment in workers' training. It talks about "subsidizing" another competitor. 
Now, even if E is to be true, the argument above is still valid -- you are potentially still subsidizing your competitors.

I guess, my question is, how do we extrapolate that the emphasis of the training experts argument is about "find net positive value of the investment" and not much about as competitive strategy (incentivizing competitors by supplying them with trained employees)?

KarishmaB · Answer

You have to look at the implication of what is said.

"But some training experts object that if a trained worker is hired away by another firm, the employer that paid for the training has merely subsidized a competitor."

It implies loss of value to the trainer. That the employer who paid for training got no value. His money got used to just subsidise a competitor. That he himself did not get value for his money. The argument is written this way only to point out the irony. We don't really have much to do with the competitor angle.

Squib17 · Answer

Premise: With employer-paid training, workers have the potential to become more productive not only in their present employment but also in any number of jobs with different employers.

Conclusion: To increase the productivity of their workforce, many firms are planning to maintain or even increase their investments in worker training.

Counter Premise: But some training experts object that if a trained worker is hired away by another firm, the employer that paid for the training has merely subsidized a competitor. They note that such hiring has been on the rise in recent years.

We need to weaken the argument - So, we need to find a reason which would tell us  why we should continue the training process, even if some employees leave the company.

Which of the following would, if true, contribute most to defeating the training experts’ objection to the firms’ strategy?

A. Firms that promise opportunities for advancement to their employees get, on average, somewhat larger numbers of job applications from untrained workers than do firms that make no such promise. Out of Scope - We are not concerned with advancement to employees factor. We need to look for a reason to continue the training process.  ]

B. In many industries, employees who take continuing-education courses are more competitive in the job market.  Whether they are competitive in the market or not is not our concern, because this cannot be the reason to continue training people. ]

C. More and more educational and training institutions are offering reduced tuition fees to firms that subsidize worker training. Out of context: Even if they are offering a discount, that does not mean that employees after getting trained won't leave the job. And since we are paying money to train, if the employee leaves, we are at a loss. ]

D. Research shows that workers whose training is wholly or partially subsidized by their employer tend to get at least as much training as do workers who pay for all their own training.  This statement compares the amount of training, which is again not our concern, as we want to know what happens after training them? ]

E. For most firms that invest in training their employees, the value added by that investment in employees who stay exceeds the value lost through other employees’ leaving to work for other companies This gives us a reason why we should continue training. So, even if some employees leave, we know that those who are still working would add value which would compensate for those who have left. Thus, that should be a good enough reason to continue training. ]

Correct Answer - E.

BrentGMATPrepNow · Answer

PREMISE: Employer-paid training helps with present job and future jobs (with competing companies)
PREMISE: Many firms planning to invest in worker training
CONCLUSION (by some experts):  Employer-paid training has the potential to be a waste of money  (if the worker is hired by a competing company)

Our goal here is to find a premise that weakens the experts' conclusion

Let's check the answer choices While also reminding ourselves what the conclusion is...

A) This does not weaken the conclusion that  employer-paid training has the potential to be a waste of money for the employer 
B) This does not weaken the conclusion that  employer-paid training has the potential to be a waste of money for the employer 
C) This does not weaken the conclusion that  employer-paid training has the potential to be a waste of money for the employer 
D) This does not weaken the conclusion that  employer-paid training has the potential to be a waste of money for the employer . It has nothing to do with the company's return on investment. 
E) This DOES weaken the conclusion that  employer-paid training has the potential to be a waste of money for the employer . This premise basically says, "Sure some employees might leave, but the ones who stay more than make up for the ones who leave."

Answer: E

MattyE · Answer

I was confused by the wording of the sentence below

"But some training experts object that if a trained worker is hired away by another firm, the employer that paid for the training has merely subsidized a competitor."

To me this means that the training expert objects to the statement that if another firm hires a recently trained employee it is a waste of money. i.e. the expert believes in the value of training even though this would happen. This would align the training experts conclusion with the firm's strategy.

I don't see how the sentence above can be read to mean that the training expert is against the firm's strategy, if someone could clarify that would be awesome.

Thanks, 
Matt

KarishmaB · Answer

Matt,

This is a reading comprehension problem you are facing.

Read this again:
"... many firms are planning to maintain or even increase their investments in worker training. But some training experts object that if a trained worker is hired away by another firm, the employer that paid for the training has merely subsidized a competitor. "

training experts object - to what? to firms maintaining or increasing their investments in training.

What is their objection? that if a trained worker is hired away by another firm, the employer that paid for the training has merely subsidized a competitor.

So basically, training experts are saying that it is not a good idea to maintain or increase expenditure in training because you are in effect subsidising a competitor.

NikitaVChoudhary · Answer

E is the answer.The answer should weaken the trainer's point of losing investment in case of (lost trained) employees.
An answer implying the number to be smaller or disproportionate as compared to existing employee's count(employees contributng towards the company), should be correct.

masterofn0ne · Answer

E. For most firms that invest in training their employees, the value added by that investment in employees who stay exceeds the value lost through other employees’ leaving to work for other companies

This answer works best, I guess

This answer works best, I guess

jabhatta2 · Answer

VeritasKarishma  - I agree OA is E but when I did this, I could not eliminate D straight away unfortunately.

Option D : Workers whose training is subsidized partially or wholly tend to get as much training as workers who are willing to pay for the training for themselves 
 
Doesn't this show if true, that companies will NOT need to subsidize training sessions (partial subsidy or full subsidy) as people who want to be trained are willing to pay for the training themselves.

This seems to suggest that the conclusion made by the company   is wrong to begin with

Is this how you eliminate D ?

KarishmaB · Answer

Focus on the question:

Which of the following would, if true, contribute most to defeating the training experts’ objection to the firms’ strategy?

Firms' strategy - Train people
Training experts’ objection - When you train people and they leave to join your competitor, you lose that money you spent on training and instead it benefits your competitor.

What will weaken this objection? 
Saying 'but the training of people who stay benefits me more than the loss'
This is what (E) says.

D. Research shows that workers whose training is wholly or partially subsidized by their employer tend to get at least as much training as do workers who pay for all their own training.

The comparison is between workers who pay themselves vs workers for whom employers pay. That is irrelevant to us. We need to look at the situation from the viewpoint of the company - whether training benefits the company or not. Whether the workers will train themselves or not and whether it will be useful to them or not is irrelevant to the question.

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With employer-paid training, workers have the

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