Futurist Alvin Toffler famously remarked that the illiterate of the 21st century will be those who can’t learn, unlearn, and relearn again. His remarks, made nearly 50 years ago now in his groundbreaking book Future Shock, are seemingly more prescient with each passing year.

There are no shortage of breathless predictions about the impact new technologies are likely to have on the workplace, and many erstwhile reports have placed the poorly skilled firmly in the crosshairs of automated tools.  What’s more, as I’ve highlighted previously, those with less skills today are also less likely to be engaged in the kind of learning and development needed to allow them to adapt to whatever changes influence their chosen profession.

New educational approaches such as Massive Open Online Courses remain largely the preserve of the already well educated, and so an ever increasing divide is opening up between the skilled and the un-skilled.

Apprenticeships to the rescue

To try and fill this gap, various governments around the world have initiated policies designed to encourage apprenticeships that allow people to learn a trade on the job.  Whilst these kind of policies have been increasingly common, question marks remain over the effectiveness, both of the policies themselves and of apprenticeships more broadly.

A recent study set out to explore how effective apprenticeships were at supporting students as they both learn new skills and make their way into the workplace.  The researchers assess young people who completed their GCSE exams between 2003 and 2008.  19% of this cohort then went on to do an apprenticeship, with nearly all of them educated up to a maximum of either GCSE level (level 2) or A-level (level 3).  The apprenticeships were either therefore intermediate (level 2) or advanced (level 3), therefore no higher or degree apprenticeships were analyzed.

The apprenticeships differ at these distinct levels, with level 3 apprenticeships typically completed in a classroom environment, whereas level 2 apprenticeships are either purely on the job or a combination of classroom and practical tuition.  Each student was tracked up until they were 28 to assess their career progression after graduating.

After controlling for various other factors that might influence one’s career progression, the researchers were able to identify a clear link between the apprenticeship and one’s earnings at 23 years of age.  For men, completing an apprenticeship was associated with a rise in income of 30% for those completing a level 2 apprenticeship, and 40% for those completing a level 3 apprenticeship.  For women, the increase was 9% and 20% respectively.

Career success

The authors suggest that this is down in part to the disciplines undertaken in the apprenticeship, with men typically focusing on vocational areas where apprenticeships have a stronger tradition and cachet in the labor market.  Areas such as building and construction are common examples of professions with a strong tradition of apprenticeships that are dominated by men.

This contrasted to the disciplines often studied by women, such as healthcare and hairdressing, which whilst generating a boost to earnings, were not as significant as those for men.  Indeed, the data revealed some disciplines where earnings gains were either incredibly low or non-existent for women.

These may seem somewhat stereotypical occupations for men and women, but the data revealed relatively little overlap between the genders in the apprenticeships undertaken.  Interestingly however, where overlaps did exist, the earnings premium still seemed to be higher for men.  This can partly be explained by differences in the number of hours worked, but there is also a chunk that cannot be accounted for.

“Overall, the results in this paper should give cause for optimism that apprenticeships really do generate a positive return in the labour market for young people,” the authors conclude. “This is not driven purely by selection. Increasing opportunities for young people to access apprenticeships does seem to be a worthwhile policy, especially since these returns are experienced by individuals who leave school with low-medium qualifications.”

It’s not a guaranteed fix however, as the data also shows the huge variability in the returns of apprenticeships that are driven in large part by the sectors people are working in.

“This is largely driven by the sectors in which people specialise and is a particularly important source of the gender earnings gap for those educated up to Level 3 (i.e. upper secondary education),” the authors continue. “A practical implication is that careers information to students should pay careful attention to the type of apprenticeships available rather than to encourage students to take any type of apprenticeship at all.”

Of course, the data is looking back into the past, so it remains to be seen whether the employability boosts from apprenticeships have endured into the present.  It’s difficult to draw too firm a conclusion regarding the value of apprenticeships in helping people buffer the affects of digital transformation, and the data did focus purely on people participating in an apprenticeship straight from school rather than re-training (for which there is considerably less data).  Nonetheless, it’s hard to imagine any education is going to be detrimental to one’s chances, so the challenge becomes one of how to help people make similar progress in a 2nd or 3rd career as they seem to make after leaving school.