Amid today’s rapid technological changes, U.S. companies have begun to notice a growing gap between the skills they need and the skills they can access. Earlier this year, research by consulting firm Robert Half found that 62% of hiring managers say skills gaps have worsened over the past 12 months, and just 6% say they have the talent needed to deliver on high-priority projects.
In practice, this means that companies are under increasing pressure to reskill workers at scale. In an effort to meet this challenge, employers have been investing increasingly large sums into training programs, and in 2025, training spend jumped 4.9% to $102.8 billion. But is this investment delivering the goods?
New research from global learning and workforce skilling company Chegg suggests that it may not be. The company’s Frontline Workers Skills Index surveyed more than 2,000 U.S.-based employers and employees across ten frontline-heavy industries, and uncovered a striking disconnect. While employers overwhelmingly believe that their training programs are working, employees often see little evidence that these efforts are helping them develop their careers.
No Change in Pay or Role
According to the report, 77% of employers believe their skills training programs are effective overall, while only 58% of employees agreed. Among workers who viewed training programs as ineffective, more than half (51%) said the training was too general and lacked relevance to their role, while 24% said that the skills taught were not used on the job. At the same time, nearly three-quarters (71%) of employees say that training has produced no change in either their pay or their role.
While employees clearly want skills that allow them to be more effective in their present roles, the report additionally found that 40% of employees would be likely to switch to another company that offered better training opportunities at similar pay. Career opportunities matter too, and the effectiveness of training depends on connecting these with the skills that employers need. When programs fail to deliver visible progress, we can expect employees’ motivation to decline.
What Happens When Training Doesn’t Deliver
Further findings in the report demonstrate what is at stake when training initiatives fail. Nearly half (45%) of employers surveyed said they have considered quitting their job because of stress linked to understaffing or workforce capability gaps, and more than one-third of employees (35%) said the same. In food services and hospitality, those numbers climbed even higher, reaching 57% among employers and 43% among employees.
What this means is that skills shortages are no longer simply a hiring problem, but a retention problem as well. This is significant for employers, given that replacing a departing employee typically costs employers 50% to 200% of the employee’s annual salary, according to figures from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).
This issue becomes even more urgent as AI is integrated into the workplace. Employers appear far more prepared than employees for that shift: more than 80% say they feel confident using AI tools, compared with just 44% of employees.
Only 3% of workers believe AI proficiency is becoming critical for advancement, suggesting that many may not fully recognize how workplace expectations are changing. At the same time, over half (52%) of employees say AI is not used in their role at all, so they have fewer opportunities to gain practical experience. That makes effective training increasingly important in helping workers prepare for how jobs are evolving.
How Training Can Better Plug Skills Gaps
The report points to a workforce caught between two priorities. When asked which skills matter most in the workplace, employers prioritized AI and automation skills alongside digital and IT capabilities. Employees, by contrast, placed greater emphasis on leadership, communication and teamwork – the soft skills that have traditionally opened the door to more senior roles. In other words, while employers are concerned mainly with closing current operational skills gaps, employees are more focused on career advancement and the future.
Both concerns are legitimate. The challenge is that many training programs appear to address only one side of the equation. Employers need workers equipped with practical skills for their current roles, including AI, but for training to be truly effective, employees also need to see how those efforts connect to career progression, greater responsibility and better pay.
Without that connection, workers may continue completing training without seeing meaningful progress in their careers, while employers continue investing heavily without closing the skills gaps they set out to solve.
