To wonder why these 'apprenticeships' are allowed?

[Remotecontrolduck]

'Apprentice sales assistant'
'Apprentice receptionist'

Both on £2.68ish an hour, full time. Just two examples of jobs I've seen this morning. Doing duties that any other sales assistant or receptionist does by the sound of it, but for less money.

I've very supportive of the concept of apprenticeships, and yes it does cost money to train someone so this can be reflected in wages, but surely this is only neccessary for actual trades, such as plumbing etc. Why on earth does anyone need an apprenticeship in being a receptionist?

It's just a way for companies to get around paying less than minimum wage isn't it. There was so many jobs like this too.

Why is this allowed?

A lot of nurseries are dependent on apprentices. They have a member of staff for £2.80 an hour for 4 days a week which is far cheaper than real staff. There can be a problem when they qualify and want a proper wage, but nurseries can usually get rid of them somehow.

Apprenticeships are very much an abused system. The only time an apprenticeship is needed in my view is in the trades that do genuinely take a long time to master and where the worker can not do a proper independent job until several months or even years of training.

Apprenticeships in Office Work or in retail are useless, in my opinion. I have personally worked for a company who have taken on a long string of apprentices who all earn a disgustingly low wage for unskilled labour that needs little or no training such as organising papers into alphabetical order. As with most places, once the apprenticeship approaches it's end, and if the employee has not already realised they are being abused and quit, they are rapidly discarded to avoid the payrise and another "apprentice" brought in.