That the economy has a skills and productivity problem has been one of the recurring themes of 2022. Rishi Sunak has in the past noted that employers spend only half the European average on training their workers. Since 2005, according to the Learning and Work Institute, business investment in skills has fallen by 28%. Such lamentable statistics, it is widely accepted, have contributed to Britain’s historically anaemic growth figures. They also represent a grievous waste of potential in relation to millions of young people entering the workforce. Yet, despite years of government rhetoric regarding apprenticeships in particular, and the introduction of the apprenticeship levy on bigger businesses in 2017, nothing seems to change.
Amid multiple recent reports delivering grim news about the economy, one study published this month stands out. Entitled “No Train, No Gain”, and produced by EDSK – an education thinktank – it finds that almost half of young people signed up for apprenticeships subsequently abandon them. Many of those who drop out, the study’s authors report, become terminally disillusioned with what they are being offered.
It is not hard to see why. In Germany and other comparable countries, firms offering apprenticeships must conform to detailed national guidelines. But here businesses appear free to offer as much, or as little, training as they choose. The independent Richard Review, commissioned by the David Cameron government a decade ago, insisted that apprenticeships “need to be high quality training with serious kudos and tangible value”. But the EDSK report finds that government-funded “apprentices” are being hired for dogsbody jobs such as making tea and answering phones in offices, or greeting guests in hospitality. In jobs where meaningful training can take place, more than half of apprentices say they are not allocated the mandatory one day a week off the job to receive training. Some “can go weeks, sometimes months, without receiving any training from a mentor or industry expert”.
