FEWER apprenticeships are available for teenagers because of a minimum wage increase for trainees, two employers have said.
Martin Burns, operations manager at Brady & Gallagher, said the firm had gone from hiring four apprentices a year to none at all.
“Brady & Gallagher has been trading for at least 50 years, and over that time, taken over 200 apprentices, which cover air conditioning, electrical and plumbing.
“We’ve been doing this for many years and we’ve covered a lot of the schemes with the government.”
Until the start of this year, apprentices in their first or second year of training had a lower minimum wage than regular employees. Brady & Gallagher is a backer of the Jersey Living Wage and fully-trained employees can be paid around £20 an hour, he said.
Under the government’s Trackers scheme, apprentices would typically be working four days a week and spending one day a week at Highlands College.
The company has had to turn down school-leavers who had submitted their CVs in the hope of a place, he added: “That’s a lot of time wasted where they could actually be training.”
He described cutting the four apprentice spots as “quite upsetting for us”. “There wasn’t enough consultation,” he said.
Ian Gordon, managing director of Gordon Electrical Services, said they had not been able to take on their usual two-to-three annual apprentices.
He had also had to turn down requests from apprentices who had been let go elsewhere.
If this is not resolved, he said, “our industry starts dying.
“It’s on its knees because there are no joiners coming in.”
The minimum wage “has closed opportunities for them”, he added.
The difference in skill between a first-year and third-year trainee was “vast”, he explained – with trainees not able to do much more than watching and learning, and restrictions on the tasks minors are allowed to do.
When he has taken on older apprentices, he said he had paid them the living wage “out of respect” and because they had more expenses and more life skills than teenagers.
Patrick Lynch, chief executive of Caritas Jersey, explained that apprentices were exempt from the Jersey Living Wage – a measure which is imposed by the Living Wage Foundation.
Both Mr Burns and Mr Gordon agreed that most new apprentices, aged 16, were still living with their parents and did not have the expenses of an adult.
Mr Gordon added he “failed to see how anybody can justify” paying them the full minimum wage.
“Something has got to happen because the industry will suffer,” he said.
“It needs more thought – a lot more thought than just saying it’s been passed and that’s what it’s going to be.”
