Faced with a dearth of skilled labor, more companies are taking employee education into their own hands.

Unemployment figures are high, but finding workers with the right skills for the job—especially for highly specialized roles such as power plant technicians or laboratory chemists—remains a big challenge, many firms say. In a survey from Lloyd's, the British insurance concern, U.S. executives considered lack of skilled workers one of the greatest risks their companies faced in 2012, second only to loss of customers.

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