"It is not a corporation's job to provide an unskilled worker skills to do a job they are not qualified for."
This is absolutely wrong. Corporations take these chances every day and they most often pay off.
It's not their "job" to train workers per se, but they would be stupid to neglect the ability to get quality employees for far less than they are potentially worth.
When a corporation takes a chance on a worker they are investing in the worker. Someone with zero skills is a high risk investment. If it turns out the worker is lazy or is not smart enough to grasp the concept of what is being taught him then they will still have an unskilled employee on their payroll that is not productive and will not be able to get a return on their investment.
A corporation will likely be able to pay someone they will train a somewhat lower wage. If the employee they are training is very smart and can do what is being taught them very well then the employee can take those newly learned skills (that the corporation just paid for) and go to another company that can offer more money.
It is a lose-lose situation to hire and train a no-skilled worker for a job that requires skill
Again...totally wrong. They will swing for the fence 9 times out of 10 and if they hit one home run it is all worth it.
"they will still have an unskilled employee on their payroll that is not productive and will not be able to get a return on their investment"
Not true at all, no one guarantees you a job...if you don't make the cut you are out on your ass. It happens every day.
I'm actually a stunning example of this...but it is a long story no one cares to hear.
Companies will generally not fire you for only a few bad days or if someone does not become as productive as they should be immediately. It generally takes at least ~6 months of poor performance before someone will be let go for bad performance.
The problem is that if someone is very good and is able to be very productive after they received their company paid training, there is nothing that would prevent them from taking those skills and going to another employer who can pay a higher salary because they do not invest as much on training entry level employees. The company that takes a chance and hires someone who has no skills is essentially paying for the 2nd company's training
Same with people who are already trained -- they can leave for more money, too. The difference is that workers will feel more loyalty to the companies who take the time to train them. The issue of companies not generally firing people for only a few bad days, on the other hand, is a specific issue that companies can choose to structure their evaluation process to avoid in various ways, and is not specific to new trainees.
Additionally, at least here in Canada many companies get you to sign a contract before you go for expensive training.
If you leave within a predetermined period after the training, you are generally either held in a non-comp clause, or a clause where they can bind you to pay back the cost of your training.
The company I work for put $250k of training into me over the last 10 years, $150k of that in the first 2 years alone to get me up to speed initially...they took a shot on me and out of loyalty alone I'm not going anywhere, they compensate me accordingly so I would never even consider moonlighting or going out on my own.
In return, they have made so much fucking money from my work...they have no complaints about training costs.
So, this is the flip side to paying to train people...there are failures and there are success stories.