Training requires loyalty to work - if companies can't expect trained personnel to stay then the investment is pure overhead.

To be fair, it's corporate America that burned that bridge in the 80s with layoff culture, citing "economic efficiency".

Companies can still reverse that trend. I work for one where many of my coworkers measure their employment there in decades. You can imagine what I thought recently when I interviewed somewhere where the interviewers had a collective 3 years under their belt.

On the job training within work hours is damm large perk. I don't get why you all talk about it as if people would run away from such companies.

Allow me to learn on the job and I will be reluctant to leave for company that don't.

You could build some measure of "loyalty" into a contract:

* We train you for six months and pay you full salary.

* You have to work for us for two years past the end of your training period.

* If you leave before that, you owe us 50% of salary from the training period. (or whatever)

In a competitive market, you might even see other companies willing to buy employees out of their contracts.

This would be illegal in some (most?) places - labor laws ban employers from clawing back pay for almost any reasons.

In California, for example, you can't even dock someone's final paycheck if they fail to return a uniform - if someone worked the time to earn a wage and you don't pay them in full, you're going to find yourself in court.

Depending on the industry, if the training is somewhat universal (like in the mig welding example) it's possible employers could offer 0% interest loans for training, with forgiveness after some payback period as part an offer.

There are different ways of doing this, though. E.g. some law firms will pay off student loan debt as long as you're working for them: https://www.usnews.com/education/best-graduate-schools/payin...

It's kind of mental accounting for the employee, though. The law firm is basically giving you an extra $100 or whatever per paycheck. However, this $100 is earmarked to pay off your law school debt, so in effect the company is helping to pay for your training.

The nice part for the company is that they do not take on any risk paying for the training: the employee already shouldered all the risk for paying for law school. The company buys a little bit of loyalty by helping the employee pay off the debt over time. It probably makes the employee think twice before quitting or looking for other employment; it is similar to the health insurance benefit in that respect.

I'm not familiar with CA labor laws, but money is fungible so it could be just be structured as "This is a three year contract, and if you quit early, you're in breach and owe us $X".

Then it's not "clawing back" pay, it's just a fine for breach of contract.

I do think laws should prevent low-wage employers from screwing over their employees for piddling stuff like uniforms, but I think that's different than something like a professional apprenticeship.

That wouldn't be an enforceable contract. Contacts require some consideration on both sides to be legally valid. However if the training is provided by a third party then the employer may be able to pay for it as a forgivable loan with the balance being written off if the employee stays for a couple years.

That would be deception against the court of law. Very bad if caught.

I'm still not clear why people are claiming this would run afoul of labor laws. IANAL, but sibling comment claims that a contract needs "consideration" on both sides, but surely the value of the training, and the value of a guaranteed term of employment are both considerations?

Repayable bonuses are legal in basically every state