A Hard Sell? The Prospects for Apprenticeship in British Retailing

35 Pages Posted: 14 Dec 2014

See all articles by Paul A. Lewis

Paul A. Lewis

King's College London

Paul Ryan

King’s College London - Faculty of Social Science and Public Policy

Howard Gospel

King's College London - The Management Centre

Date Written: 2008

Abstract

We consider the prospects for apprenticeship in British retailing, in terms of the contribution of apprenticeship to intermediate skills and the contribution of large employers to the Advanced Apprenticeship (AA) programme. Evidence is taken from interviews with training and HR managers from 17 large employers. We find that AA is for the most part unpopular with large retailers, who prefer to acquire intermediate skills through the upgrade training of existing employees through bespoke, in-house training programmes and, to a lesser degree, via the recruitment of skilled workers. The one exception to this rule is to be found in the convenience stores sub-sector of retailing, where the breadth of skills supplied by AA fits in well with employers’ requirements. Even here, however, the scale of Apprenticeship is limited, both in terms of the numbers of Apprentices being trained and also in terms of employers’ own investment in the training of their Apprentices.

Keywords: Apprenticeship, human capital, training, skills, human resource management, education, retailing.

JEL Classification: D21, I20, I21, I28, J31, J41, J42.

Suggested Citation

Lewis, Paul Andrew and Ryan, Paul and Gospel, Howard, A Hard Sell? The Prospects for Apprenticeship in British Retailing (2008). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2537622 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2537622

Paul Andrew Lewis (Contact Author)

King's College London ( email )

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HOME PAGE: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/politicaleconomy/people/academic/lewis.aspx

Paul Ryan

King’s College London - Faculty of Social Science and Public Policy ( email )

London, SE1 9NN
United Kingdom

Howard Gospel

King's College London - The Management Centre ( email )

150 Stamford Street
London, SE1 9NN
United Kingdom
44 020 78484121 (Phone)

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