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House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee Inquiry Employment and Training Opportunities for Low-Skilled Young People - TUC Evidence
- Introduction
- Pay for apprentices
- Gender pay gap
- Stereotyping
- Workplace barriers
- Supporting apprentices
- Recommendations
- Conclusions
Introduction
1. The Trades Union Congress (TUC) is the national centre for trade unions representing 6.5 million workers in 65 affiliated trade unions. The TUC welcomes the opportunity to provide evidence to the House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs' Inquiry into Employment and Training Opportunities for Low-Skilled Young People.
2. We address our evidence specifically to questions seven and eight, regarding whether existing training programmes have provided young people with adequate skills, looking particularly at Apprenticeships.
3. The TUC supports Apprenticeships and want to see their numbers grow. The commitment by Government to increase the number of Apprenticeships to 500,000 by 2020 is very welcome. However, we also recognise that the quality of Apprenticeships varies, with some apprentices receiving extremely low pay and inadequate training, with a resulting detrimental impact upon completion rates.
4. With the expansion of Apprenticeships, there must be an increase in efforts to ensure that all programmes are high quality and lead to good jobs, and are not an expansion of programme-led approaches without employed status. It is also crucial that tackling equality and diversity is at the heart of any expansion of Apprenticeship programmes.
Pay for apprentices
5. Currently apprentices under the age of 18 and those in the first year of their Apprenticeship but under the age of 26 are exempt from the National Minimum Wage. These exemptions have been in place since 1999, without review. Since then there has been much evidence of the exploitative rates paid to some apprentices, including a report by the Department for Education and Skills[1] (DfES).
6. The DfES report provides grounds for concern, including the following finding:
There are a number of sectors where a significant percentage of apprentices earned less than £80 per week in 2005, including early years (49 percent), hairdressing (41 percent), retail (26 percent), health and social care (22 percent) and business administration (22 percent) [2]
The average hairdressing apprentice earned £90 per week in 2005 - an estimated £2.73 per hour [3]
7. The Learning and Skills Council has now established a contractual provision with providers that apprentices should be paid at least £80 per week in those Apprenticeships that it helps to fund. While this is welcome, the TUC is concerned that this will not be enough to make serious inroads into the exploitation and unwelcome gender differences within the sector. In addition, it is not yet clear that the minimum payment requirement will be enforced in an effective way. Research by the Apprenticeship Taskforce noted that low wages are one of the significant reasons for non-completion of Apprenticeships.
8. A survey of 150 workplaces by the Labour Research Department published in July 2006 showed there is a 'union effect' on apprentice wages [4] . Most of the respondents to the survey came from unionised workplaces, and around three out of ten pay at least £5.05 an hour. All of the pay rates from non-unionised workplaces were less than £3 an hour. The research, which was undertaken after the introduction of the £80 per week minimum, also identified examples of motor vehicle technicians earning £2.15 an hour, and £40 a week for an administrator working 32 hours per week.
Gender pay gap
9. The TUC is particularly concerned that the gender pay gap is much worse for apprentices than for employees as a whole:
The average female apprentice earns just 74 percent of the average male apprentice wage [5]
The bottom decile of apprentices in the female dominated early years, care and education sector earned just £40 per week in 2005, an estimated £1.21 per hour [6] .
10. The DfES report also found that 70 percent of those in level 3 apprenticeships are male and that male apprentices receive more than twice as many hours of training per week [7]
11. The Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC), which has called on the Government to extend the relevant age rate of the minimum wage to all apprentices, has already identified many of these problems [8] , including that those Apprenticeships which attract a majority of women receive lower remuneration than those which attract a majority of men.
12. Apprenticeships have also been shown to reinforce and indeed exacerbate occupational segregation [9] . Further, young people from black and ethnic minority communities are under-represented in Apprenticeships, and less likely to end up in employment upon completion of their Apprenticeship. Disabled people are also under-represented in Apprenticeships, although the data available is limited (this is something that should be addressed in the near future).
13. The Equal Opportunities Commission General Formal Investigation into Apprenticeships (EOC GFI) found that many young women would have made different choices had they known pay rates. Moreover, many young black people do not necessarily even get the chance to hear about apprenticeship vacancies.
Stereotyping
14. Choices and opportunities during teenage years have important implications for job opportunities, future career paths, earning potential and quality of life. As outlined by the EOC, education is crucial to the achievement of equality between men and women.
15. While it is true that the way young people see themselves and their role in society is developed from an early age, the choices that are made by teenagers have a significant impact on their future.
16. Young people are socialised early in ways that impact on their career choices. Peer pressure, parents and careers advice are important influences and often lead to traditional choices. There are also barriers in post school training, for example, young women doing courses in male dominated areas will be in a minority. Young people from black and ethnic minority communities are more likely to undertake college based courses that do not lead to a job at the end of it.
17. The TUC, therefore, believes that it is critical to challenge stereotyped assumptions among this age group and those working with them.
Workplace barriers
18. There are also important structural barriers in the workplace. Some employers hold stereotypical views about 'appropriate' job roles for women and men, others recruit from traditional recruitment 'pools' (for example, white men in construction, women in childcare and care work). The EOC GFI demonstrated that even where there are skills shortages in a sector, most employers still will not employ non-traditional recruits.
19. Barriers can include workplace culture (such as sexist or racist jokes, bullying and harassment), work practices (for example, long hours, lack of quality part-time work), lack of facilities (such as lack of single sex changing rooms) and absence of 'critical mass' from a particular group, which may make it more difficult to settle into a workplace and feel supported at work.
20. There is also evidence that some employers, often small and without a union presence, view discrimination as acceptable: evidence from the EOC's other General Formal Investigation on pregnancy suggest that this is an area where discrimination is rife. It should also be noted that even if senior management is committed to equality and diversity, in practice middle or line managers often do not support this, which may perpetuate discriminatory workplace cultures.
Supporting apprentices
21. Where apprentices are supported in their role and in particular have a workplace 'mentor', they are more likely to have a positive experience in their Apprenticeship. However good practice is not particularly widespread.
22. The role of providers in ensuring the quality of Apprenticeships is vitally important. Where assessors visit apprentices infrequently, there is little opportunity for their experience to be monitored.
23. There are also other barriers to completion, for example the amount of paperwork apprentices are required to submit.
24. Without addressing these factors, the barriers to entering non-traditional sectors may be too high. Further, recruiting and training people into a sector where they are currently in the minority may seem like too much of an effort for employers, who will look for the bottom line benefits.
Recommendations
Challenging Stereotypes
25. The DfES should investigate piloting of Apprenticeships that explicitlyseek to engage women and men into non-traditional areas, attempting to achieve 'critical mass'. This would need to be linked to real jobs and require employer engagement.
26. Given the over-representation of young black people on programme led apprenticeships, the DfES could pilot opportunities for increasing work placements that lead to real jobs or employment based Apprenticeships. For example a pilot could be carried out in relation the Olympics.
27. There must be more research on equality and diversity and in particular the opportunities of young people from black and ethnic minority communities, especially in regard to pay.
28. The TUC also believes that challenging stereotypes should be part of the core school curriculum and that young people ought to be encouraged to undertake work experience in a non-traditional area, and supported in this decision.
29. Young people should be made aware of the various options that are available to them through high quality, objective advice and guidance, taking account of their interests and abilities. The personal careers interview should be with a teacher or careers adviser who has been trained to open up choices, challenge gender stereotyping and promote non-traditional work opportunities.
30. The recent commitment to expand Apprenticeships for Adults is welcome and provides an excellent opportunity to build equality and diversity, particularly as older women are more likely to make non-stereotypical choices. This could also help men choose areas usually dominated by women. However equality and diversity must be explicitly built into the development of Apprenticeships for Adults.
Procurement
31. The Government should support the use of procurement contracts to increase take up of Apprenticeships, and to boost equality for women, black and ethnic minority and disabled people in Apprenticeships.
Sectors Skills Councils
32. The equality and diversity remit of Sector Skills Agreements should be significantly strengthened so that Sector Skills Councils are obliged to come up with concrete initiatives for improving training opportunities for women, black and ethnic minority and disabled workers, with clearly prescribed Apprenticeship targets and outcomes.
33. Given the lack of progression opportunities in the areas where young women tend to be concentrated, such as retail, compared to those for young men, Sectors Skills Councils should explicitly look at boosting the opportunities to progress to level 3 Apprenticeships and beyond across all programmes.
National Minimum Wage
34. The LPC's 2006 report recommended that 'the Government invite the Commission to carry out a full review of the apprenticeship exemptions and report in 2008' [10] . Given the evidence that has come to light since the last Commission report, the need for such a review is now even more urgent.
35. The Government should, therefore, respond positively to the recommendation from the Low Pay Commission that it be asked to review the current exemption of apprentices from the National Minimum Wage.
A high quality vision
36. The Apprenticeship programme, and its welcome extension, should be underpinned by strategies to increase both quality and equality.
37. The Government should promote a 'vision' for a high quality Apprenticeships, with good pay and high quality training, and including the role of workplace mentors, including union representatives. This should be incorporated into the Apprenticeships 'blueprint' and promoted more widely.
38. The Government should lead by example as an employer, both in boosting provision of high quality Apprenticeships and tackling issues of equality and diversity.
39. There needs to be transparency on Apprenticeship opportunities, pay and training through, for example, a national website to help drive up standards.
40. The role of providers in ensuring the quality of Apprenticeships should be closely monitored and reviewed.
41. The amount of paperwork that apprentices are required to complete by hand could be reduced through IT based solutions.
Conclusions
42. The TUC supports Apprenticeships and want to see their numbers grow. The commitment by Government to increase the number of Apprenticeships to 500,000 by 2020 is very welcome. However with the expansion of Apprenticeships, there must be an increase in efforts to ensure that all programmes are high quality and lead to good jobs, and are not an expansion of programme-led approaches without employed status. It is also crucial that tackling equality and diversity is at the heart of any expansion of Apprenticeship programmes.
[1] 'Apprenticeship Pay: A Survey of Earnings by Sector', Anna Ullman and Gemma Deakin (BRMB Social Research), DfES Research Report 674, 2005. Note that the data in the report mixes gross pay and net pay. The TUC has asked that future surveys record gross pay so that compliance with the LSC £80 minimum pay requirement can be measured.
[2] Ibid, fig 4.3, p21
[3] Ibid, table 4.1, p16
[4] Labour Research Department, Workplace Report, No. 38 July 2006, p15-17
[5] Ibid, p19
[6] Ibid, table 4.1, p18
[7] Average weekly on and off the job training for apprentices - male 23 hours; female 10 hours. Source: supplementary analysis of the data from the DfES report conducted by the TUC.
[8] 'Minimum Wage for Modern Apprentices Would Help Close Gender Pay Gap', EOC press release, 31 October 2003. Minimum wage for modern apprentice help
[9] The Equal Opportunities Commission General Formal Investigation into Occupational Segregation and Apprenticeships showed that for example while 8 percent of employees in the engineering sector are women, only 6 percent of apprentice engineers are women.
[10] 'The National Minimum Wage - Low Pay Commission Report 2006', LPC 2006, pxvii.
Report (2,300 words) issued 4 Apr 2007
