What Employers Have To Gain From Apprenticeships

Recently apprenticeships have become increasingly popular amongst employers and youngsters as different industries are welcoming people without a degree into their career and training them through the job. The schemes offer people the chance to earn a wage whilst they train for a specific job or career all whilst gaining work experience at the same time. A great option for those who have an idea what they want to do for a career, they tend to lead to you getting a job doing what you have been trained for as soon as you qualify – often with the company or business that trained you.

Without the tuition fees associated with university, apprenticeships are now available in a broader range of industries than ever before. No longer just something for manual workers (although these types of roles are still available), the benefits of taking an apprenticeship are evident. However, with so much on offer for apprentices, you may wonder what is in it for the companies, businesses, and organisations that take on apprentices? Why would a business be willing to spend their time and money hiring apprentices at all?

However, before we go further, we need to address the ‘elephant in the room’ – pay!

It is true that the apprentice minimum wage is lower than the national minimum wage, which has led the more cynical to argue that businesses love apprentices as they provide cheap labour. However, this argument ignores the cost of training that is covered by the apprenticeship providers (no tuition fees, remember?), and the fact that many of the best apprenticeships pay far more than this minimum required wage.

Far from just being disposable cheap labour apprentices are often seen as the very future of a company or organisation. As with a sponsored degree (where a company pays for your university tuition), an apprenticeship is an investment in you in the hope that your skills and knowledge will benefit your employer once you have qualified.

In fact, from an employer’s point of view the benefits of hiring apprentices go beyond this and right down to the training itself.

For the whole story click here