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In response to the new apprenticeship levy coming into effect this April, many employers are going to rebrand existing graduate programmes into apprenticeships to ensure they can claim the payroll tax that they would be entitled to.
In a pole by BPP Professional Education of leading organisations in engineering, financial services, law and accountancy, 53% were found to be in the process of switching graduate schemes into apprenticeships to get the benefit of additional government support.
This raises questions about the effectiveness of the new measure, who’s aim is to open up new routes into the workforce for those who are not university educated. With so many businesses simply converting existing schemes to meet quotas it will negate many of the benefits that would hope to be achieved by the levy. Many graduates, who have already invested a lot of money in their education, are unlikely to value a lower level apprenticeship qualification.
The survey also revealed that 30 per cent of employers would switch some existing management training into degree-level apprenticeships schemes, while 78 per cent said they would consider candidates of any age for apprenticeships. Research from the Association of Graduate Recruiters suggests that the number of apprenticeship opportunities rose by 24 per cent last year, while graduate vacancies went up just 2 per cent.
If you have any questions regarding the Apprenticeship levy coming this April, please contact HPC either on this website or via one of our social media channels.
To visit the full article by CIPD please follow this link: http://www2.cipd.co.uk/pm/peoplemanagement/b/weblog/archive/2017/02/09/most-employers-plan-to-enrol-graduates-in-apprenticeship-schemes-says-survey.aspx