National Apprenticeship Week: employers can offer a lifeline

We have a mass of jobless young people in this country and there is a desperate need to help them get a foot on the ladder of work. As National Apprenticeship weeks kicks off, Christine Townley, director of the Construction Youth Trust urges employers to step up to the plate.

The construction industry is a wonderful sector to work in – but that is not always recognised and understood by the wider world.  Many young people don’t understand about the wealth of opportunities that there are and how you can start at the bottom and work your way to the top.  

At Construction Youth Trust we are passionate about helping young people overcome barriers so that they can get into the industry, and this month we’re launching an awareness campaign around apprenticeships, beginning with our support of National Apprenticeships Week 6-10 February. Apprenticeships have long been associated with construction, but against the current backdrop of record youth unemployment with 1 million under 25’s now unemployed more apprenticeships are needed to get young people started on their journey to work.

We partner with employers who are making a real difference to young peoples’ lives and who are now meeting hidden talent that they didn’t know was out there. Once on board with us I’m always impressed with their commitment to help young people but I’d like to see this sort of commitment from all employers, especially in the most disadvantaged communities with those furthest from work. Our message is simple – we want to do more and want to speak to companies who have similar ambitions. We run training programmes at trade and professional level.

Christine Townley, director of the Construction Youth Trust

Last year, with the support of Land Securities and Bouygues, we launched our London mobile classroom that provides construction tasters for young people and enables them to understand what our sector can really offer. The classroom goes right into the heart of the community and engages young people where they already are. We also have a classroom in South Wales and are launching one this Spring in Manchester. Pre-apprentice programmes that we run include real projects such as void repair and path building.  These projects give the young people real construction experience working alongside industry craftsmen and give them a chance to show their motivation and desire to work.   We aim to match as many of our young people as possible to work placements and apprenticeships and also run a programme called Toolkit for young offenders that links them with real jobs.

The sort of feedback we get from young people is that they want to work but just don’t know where to start especially in areas with high levels of unemployment. More often than not, it’s not that these young people don’t want to work it’s that they see work as something unobtainable. One of our young beneficiaries recently told us:  ‘I’d never even had an interview before and now I’ve got an apprenticeship. With a new baby of the way it means I can look after my family’  So you can see that for many it’s a question of confidence and equality of opportunity.

I applaud the Government’s drive for work placements and apprenticeships but  I would like to suggest that even more needs to be done to bridge the gap between communities and construction so that that drive can be realised and our young people can make a meaningful contribution to society.  We recognise that it’s tough out there at the moment but we need construction companies to be long-sighted: when industry picks up we need people with the right skills and experiences to make these projects a reality.

We have met many SME’s who are passionate about giving a young person a ‘start’ but don’t have the time to reach out into the community and spot talent – Construction Youth Trust is here to help with just that.   I hope National Apprenticeships will receive great industry backing and would like to ask those reading this ‘What is your organisation doing to promote construction and can you do more?’