That can be contractualized, right?

I believe that's called indentured servitude, and at least in the US, cannot be enforced by contract law.

>indentured servitude.

No, it's not. And, I wouldn't dismiss out of hand what can be "enforced by contract law". The contract itself represents the willingness of two parties to adhere to certain terms. If a company pays you a million dollar signing bonus and asks you for a three year commitment, then you should expect them to demand that bonus back if you leave in two years for reasons not set forth by the terms. And, you should expect claims of "indentured servitude" to fall on deaf ears in court. You can leave. You just can't keep the money.

Similarly, companies wouldn't enforce that the person continue to work for them; simply that they must repay their training costs if they don't.

This is currently done by some companies, for instance, with MBA sponsorships. They're sometimes called "loyalty contracts".

This will be abused. Mcdonald's will say that it's 'training' cost 10 grand and keep people on low wages without any recourse for the entire term of the contact. Rinse, repeat.

That's specious and unrealistic. Nobody's buying that it costs $10K to train on fries or any other low-skilled position.

These would be voluntary programs for skilled jobs that require training. No one would be obligated to sign up, and no one would voluntarily do so without obvious benefit.

Hmm not sure, there might be some legal/regulatory barriers there.

The entire US is at-will employment. It can't be.

About the most you can do is try to claw-back your training expenses if they don't stay for a certain number of years, but you can't squeeze blood from a stone. That money was already spent on basic necessities of life and can't be recovered.

>That money was already spent on basic necessities of life and can't be recovered

Presumably, if the training were significant enough to be worth the company pursuing it and the now ex-employee found it economically better to use those skills elsewhere, then there might be significant enough income against which to make a claim.

If this worked you'd think it would be more widespread, but instead corporations have consistently pushed in the opposite direction with workers over the past few decades. There used to be a lot more job security, on-the-job training, and apprenticing. Corporations have figured that not having all that stuff is in their favor as by only hiring qualified people they can put the costs of the training on the employees, and then if there aren't enough qualified people, well, off-shore production.

>If this worked you'd think it would be more widespread

Yeah, that was my original question.

I think what you're saying is true to an extent. At the same time, a lot of companies complain that positions simply go unfilled.