Pandemic | Spike in number of apprentices made redundant

Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, one area of the workforce that has seen vast cuts to overall numbers is apprenticeships.

According to data which the BBC received under the Freedom of Information Act, redundancy levels among apprentices are two-thirds higher than in the same period in 2019.

The data found that between March and July, 1,033 people in England were withdrawn from apprenticeship programmes because they had been made redundant. This compares to 615 for the same period in 2019, although the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) did note that the total number of apprentices made redundant within the UK would be ‘significantly’ higher than those figures depicted.

Worryingly, the number of redundancies seems to be growing at a steady rate, despite Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s measures to support those in schemes, including salary support and the recent ‘Kickstart Scheme’, which provides funding to employers to create job placements for 16 to 24-year-olds on Universal Credit.