The Government is putting up to £240 million into apprenticeship brokerage through England’s regional mayors. The idea is to help employers through the system and match young people with vacancies.
Fine, if there’s a vacancy at the end of it. What bloody use is a matching service to a young person who can’t find a firm able to take them on? We get hundreds of proactive young people wanting apprenticeships, but we only take on, currently, just a few at a time.
Nearly a million young people aged 16 to 24 in the UK are out of education, employment or training. At the same time, businesses need plumbers, electricians and engineers.
Alan Milburn’s review of youth unemployment and inactivity is due to report in the coming weeks. I’d like him to recommend something that would make an immediate difference to the firms that could give those young people a start. Pay employers to take on apprentices.
I started Pimlico Plumbers with a bag of tools and a second-hand van. Over the years we created 1,200 apprenticeships. I know what it takes to turn somebody who’s never picked up a spanner into a tradesperson you’d trust to send to a customer’s home.
In those early months when you’re paying the apprentice’s wages, it may reduce the productivity of more experienced employees as they support them in their training. For a small firm, that can be the difference between taking someone on and putting it off for another year. But that won’t be forever.
My proposal is to take the money the Government would otherwise spend on out-of-work benefits for a young person who takes up an apprenticeship and put it towards their wages and training. Pay the employer when they create an extra place and give them a further payment when the apprentice qualifies. A young person gets a wage from day one, and the business can afford to give them the time it takes to learn the job properly.
At WeFix London we’d be all over that and we’d be recruiting a wave of apprentices to work alongside our experienced engineers.
Plus, look at what the taxpayer gets for that money. Every year a young person spends out of work is a year of earnings and work experience they miss out on. Get them into a trade and, as their earnings rise, so does their contribution in tax.
They’ve also got money to spend and a skill that lets their employer take on more work. Some will go on to start their own firms and train apprentices themselves. That’s a return I’d be happy to put my name to.
If ministers want to know whether their spending has worked, count how many extra apprentices employers take on and how many finish their training. Milburn should ask what it would take for a small business to hire one more apprentice. For plenty of firms, the answer is enough help with the wages to say yes.
Key takeaways
- Redirect benefit spending towards wage and training support for employers who create extra apprenticeship places.
- Help small firms cover the early costs of training apprentices and reduced productivity.
- Apprenticeships give young people a wage from day one, skills and valuable work experience.
- More skilled workers can help businesses take on more work and boost tax contributions.
- Measure success by the extra apprentices hired and the number who complete their training.
