EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND WORK FORCE PLANNING IN MANUFACTURING FIRMS IN RIVERS STATE Dr.

Abstract

The study examined Educational development and workforce planning in manufacturing firms in
Rivers State. Two research questions and three research hypotheses guided the study. The study
participants comprise d of management staff of manufacturing firms in Rivers State. A sample of 90
study participants where purposely selected from nine manufacturing firms in Rivers State. The
instrument for data collection was a self developed questionnaire titled: Educationa l Development
and Work Force Planning (EDWFE) response options include, Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree,
Strongly disagree. The instrument was validated by experts who ensured that the instruments meets
required standards, a reliability coefficient index o f 0.862 was obtained using cronbach alpha
statistics, the descriptive statistics of mean and standard deviation was used to analyze the research
question while spearman rack order and independent t test was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05
alpha level. Major findings of the study revealed a significant relationship between educational
development and work force planning in manufacturing firms in Rivers State. Based on the findings,
the study recommended that staff of manufacturing firms should be encoura ged to undergo regular
training and seminars to develop their knowledge and skills in job performance.