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[Bowdon]

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2018/03/bt-to-create-over-1300-uk-apprenticeship-and-graduate-jobs.html

National telecoms giant and ISP BT has announced that they are aiming to create a further 1,300+ apprenticeship and graduate jobs, which will cover various different roles including TV production, engineering, customer service and in cyber-security (EE and Plusnet will hold some of the roles).

The move is in addition to last week’s announcement from their “legally separate” network access division, Openreach, which pledged to recruit a further 3,500 engineers. Overall the BT Group is one of the UK’s largest employers (82,800 people) and the latest round will hunt for new apprenticeships / graduates from locations including London, Glasgow, Belfast, Warrington, Bristol, Cardiff, Doncaster and Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

[kitz]

Good news. 
Especially since the BT group do decent apprenticeship paths with a job at the end of it.   
Far too often I've seen young people taken on under so called apprentice schemes, whereby the company is gov subsidised for taking on a apprentices, then the employee is dismissed shortly before their term is complete and the next week the company will be offering a new apprenticeship position.   I don't know if it's a nationwide thing, but certainly around here it's quite obvious that a lot of firms do use the scheme as a means to cheap labour in several work sectors.

EE and Plusnet will hold some of the roles

More PN CS staff hopefully which is long overdue.

[c6em]

My experience of rather longer ago was the opposite also applied.
Apprentices would use the facilities of a larger/good company whatever to get the qualifications and then immediately jump ship to another employer who paid more - usually because they did not have the costs of running an apprentice scheme..

[Black Sheep]

My experience of rather longer ago was the opposite also applied.
Apprentices would use the facilities of a larger/good company whatever to get the qualifications and then immediately jump ship to another employer who paid more - usually because they did not have the costs of running an apprentice scheme..

I have personal experience of what Kitz is saying. My son was literally in the last year of his electrical apprenticeship with the local council (well, the next borough on from ours to be truthful), and they cancelled the contract quoting cut-backs.
The experienced bloke he was two'd-up with rang my son about 2 months later, saying they'd taken on another electrical apprentice. Scandalous. 

Luckily, an electrician friend of my Dad's took him on, to see him through the last year. Phew.

Back to today's BT apprenticeships ..... our industry is pretty bespoke in as much as 'jumping ship' has its limitations. Also, there's not many companies out there offering the T&C's/Pension rights, that BT do ...... cash is not ALWAYS king. 

[kitz]

Perhaps its the North-West then, but I personally know several young kids who were dismissed within the last few months before the end of their apprenticeship.  Plus I've heard of more via my daughter/daughter's friends.   The ones I know of where training to be electrician, 2x hairdressers and media despite being supposedly satisfactory for the previous 2/3 yrs.  I've also heard of it happening in retail & office admin (filing clerk in old money)... plus there's a telesales company near here that is notorious for it. 

The gov pays up to 90% of costs... and the apprentice gets paid the bare minimum of something like £3.20 per hr.  Because they are in an apprentice scheme they get less than the actual minimum wage.   So some firms see it as a source of cheap labour then at the end of the 3yrs replace them with another rather than keeping them on.    It really is scandalous that they manage to get away with this.