While some employers may be forced to make cutbacks to staff training budgets, the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) has advised that on-the-job training is still a viable option.

According to chief executive of CMI, Ruth Spellman, businesses should look into other areas to cut costs before reducing the provision of training and development.

"Project teams can be cross-functional, giving people exposure to others’ ways of working and enabling them to pick up skills from wider areas of the business," she explained.

"The point behind exploring alternative methods of training is that development shouldn’t stop."

Ms Spellman’s comments follow recent figures from the Confederation of British Industry, which indicate that a growing number of employers are seeking to gain more from training in order to survive the current economic downturn.

The report revealed that two-fifths of UK employers are concerned about the basic literacy and numeracy skills of their existing workforce, with 57 per cent worried about IT skills.