Youth Skills Day: Why apprenticeships offer a great opportunity for young people

Today is National Youth Skills Day! World Youth Skills Day seeks to emphasize the importance of engaging young people in the workforce – and campaigning for young people to get the skills they need to flourish.

Especially after organisations brought skills development almost to a standstill due to lockdown measures introduced during the pandemic – training was interrupted for 86 percent of apprentices and 83 percent of interns/trainees. Given this, it’s now more important than ever to support our youth in developing skills through the likes apprenticeships whether it be as an employer – giving a young person an opportunity, or as a parent or guardian – encouraging your child to opt for the vocational route.

In light of youth skills day, we wanted to share 3 reasons why apprenticeships are a great opportunity for both young people and employers when it comes to developing valuable skills:

They focus on equipping you with specialist, industry-relevant skills: By starting as a trade apprenticeship, you will gain valuable experience whilst learning on the job from seasoned professionals looking to transfer their knowledge and skills to the next generation of trades people looking to develop their careers.

 

They teach you a variety of soft skills, that are highly valuable in the workplace: Whilst hard skills are easier for employers to identify and train, an individuals’ soft skills are often considered equally, if not more desirable for the successful appointment to a role.

Whether you’re a big or small business, apprenticeships can help bridge skills gaps: grow talent and develop a motivated, skilled and qualified workforce – Apprenticeships help businesses boost

productivity by bringing in new talent that quickly helps to grow their skills base.

Lyndsey Fitheride, Commercial Director, System People says:

“World Youth Skills Day seeks to emphasize the importance of engaging young people in the workforce – and apprenticeships alongside any other practical based work experience examples play a huge role in preparing the youth of today for their life-long career.  

Apprenticeships help young people develop key soft skills such as communication, problem solving, team working, negotiation, resilience and more given you are in a work-based environment from day one. So yes, apprenticeships are offer a great way to teach the youth the skills they will need to successfully manage evolving challenges in the workplace”

View our current apprenticeship vacancies here: https://apprenticeships.system-people.co.uk/vacancies/