Apprentice Training Costs in British Manufacturing Establishments: Some New Evidence
| Published date | 01 November 1986 |
| Date | 01 November 1986 |
| Author | Ian S. Jones |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.1986.tb00690.x |
Britkh Journal
of
Industrial Relations
24:3
November
1986
0007-1080
$3.00
Apprentice Training
Costs
in British
Manufacturing Establishments: Some
New Evidence
Ian
S.
Jones*
1. INTRODUCTION
This paper presents the findings of a small sample enquiry into the net costs
to the firm of apprentice training in British manufacturing establishments in
1984. The information has been collected by means of interviews with
personnel having responsibility for apprentice training in the establishments
concerned.
Despite its importance as a vehicle for the formation of craft and
technician level skills, investigation of the net costs of apprentice training to
the firm appears to have been greatly neglected by British researchers.' The
absence of any substantial research into the matter was bemoaned by
commentators such as Williams (1957) and Liepmann (1960) in the 1950s,
yet since then there appear to have been very few substantial published
studies on British experience.2
The current enquiry originated as a follow-up to a postal survey carried
out by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) in
1983, which sought information on various aspects of the recruitment and
training of craftsmen and technicians in a sample of 124 British manufactur-
ing establishments. That survey found wide variations between establish-
ments in the estimated net costs of apprentice training,3 despite an
apparently high degree of uniformity in the standards of achievement sought
by these companies in their
apprentice^.^
Variations in recorded training costs per apprentice might have arisen for
a variety of reasons:
(1) Differences in firms' ability to hire the required skills on the external
labour market. The more difficult this is, the greater the expense that
the firm will be willing to incur on internal training (Jones and
Hollenstein, 1983).
(2) Genuine differences in the efficiency of training programmes between
establishments; for example, it may be inherently cheaper to train
*
National Institute
of
Economic and Social Research.
334
British Journal
of
Industrial Relations
apprentices in large establishments than in small establishments (or
vice versa).
(3)
Different approaches to the estimation
of
one or more
of
the com-
ponents
of
net cost. For example, there may have been differences in the
way in which respondents estimated the cost
of
supervisory time or
valued apprentice output.
(4)
Unidentified differences between establishments in the mix
of
oc-
cupations followed by apprentices.
(5)
Measurement error.
The present enquiry has been particularly concerned to examine the
sources
of
variation in net training costs
-
a matter that was not given
adequate attention in the earlier studies.
The firms participating in the study were a sub-sample
of
the establish-
ments which responded to the original NIESR postal survey. The character-
istics
of
these establishments and
of
their apprentice training programmes
are described in Part
2.
The main findings on net costs in sample
establishments are presented in Part
3.
The earlier British studies referred to
above did not consider the effects of wastage during training on training
costs. Although the actual experience of firms in the present sample appears
to justify this neglect, estimates are presented in Part
4
of how higher rates
of
wastage, such as those experienced by engineering companies in the
1970s,
might affect training costs. In Part
5,
the results obtained in the present
enquiry are compared with those obtained in previous sample enquiries
by
the Engineering Industry Training Board (EITB,
1972)
and Atkinson
(1982).
A summary
of
the key findings and an assessment
of
their
implications for public policy are presented in Part
6.
2.
SAMPLE CHARACTERISTICS AND APPRENTICE
TRAINING PROGRAMMES
The characteristics
of
the sample
Because
of
the decision to seek information by means
of
personal interviews
and the limited resources available for the investigation, it was decided that
the sample of establishments would be no larger than about a dozen.
Accordingly, thirteen
of
the establishments which had provided estimates
of
net costs in the original survey were contacted initially.
Ten
agreed to co-
operate in the enquiry.
Analysis of the postal survey results suggested that the net costs
of
apprentice training might be higher in what may be termed the process
industries (such as chemicals or food, drink and tobacco manufacturing
industries), where the craft labour force and hence craft apprentices were
engaged in plant maintenance activities, than in engineering and related
industries (including vehicles) in which craftsmen and apprentices were
To continue reading
Request your trial