Taking on an apprentice can be great way to help your business grow while at the same time providing a way for young people to earn a wage while combining practical training in a job with studying towards a qualification – as these two firms found out.
Schools, colleges and universities aren’t making enough young people “world-ready”, let alone “work-ready” and by the time they come to employers like me they may be hungry for a job, but they don’t often have the real skills they need to enter the workplace no matter how many bits of paper they bring after passing their exams.
By Paul Noblet
Ministers are serious about apprenticeships, but will good intentions translate into a leg-up onto the career ladder for those that need it most, or will they repeat past mistakes
It has been estimated that by 2022 there will be 2.5m job openings for engineers in the UK, but there are truly big business benefits of apprentices to help turn that prediction around for the better.
The government has published a long-awaited draft on the Apprenticeship Levy, confirming plans to install a 0.5 per cent tax on companies with a wage bill of more than £3m to fund apprenticeships. But what does it mean for your business
Iain Duncan Smith should be awarded a “common sense” gong for his completely logical, no-nonsense approach to getting good careers education to young people still in school before it’s too late.
By Robert Yardy
The spotlight has once again been cast on the importance of apprenticeships with George Osborne’s autumn statement promising to raise £3bn a year to fund three million employer apprenticeships across the UK.
As regular Real Business readers will know, apprenticeships are at the top of my agenda. However, since the chancellor put the gloss on his Autumn Statement with the details of his apprenticeship levy, there is a real feeling that momentum is growing behind vocational training.
If you don’t have the time or patience to trawl through the full Autumn Statement and Spending Review document, Real Business has summarised all of chancellor George Osborne’s salient points for your reading pleasure.
George Osborne revealed during the Autumn Statement 2015 that he will enforce an apprenticeship levy by April 2017 as part of the Spending Review in order to create three million apprenticeships – all of which will be “high quality” as overseen by a body led by business secretary Sajid Javid.
