Barely half of the apprentices left without jobs after the collapse of Carillion last month have been found new apprenticeships, Anne Milton, the skills minister, has disclosed.
The Education and Skills Funding Agency transferred the training of Carillion’s apprentices to the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) after the construction company went bust earlier this year.
However, despite approaching tens of thousands of its contacts, the CITB has only managed to find new employers for around half of the 1,400 apprentices who worked for Carillion. The admission was made by Ms Milton in a written response to a question from Labour MP Catherine West.
The CITB is “proactively working with their established network of college partners to support all affected apprentices” and “utilising their existing employer contacts in the sector, in order to find and secure alternative employers for the apprentices to complete their frameworks or standards,” according to the skills minister.
New employment with wages
In the response, made last Thursday, Ms Milton added: “CITB has emailed 40,000 external contacts, the vast majority of whom are employers, encouraging them to take on Carillion apprentices”.
However, it has only been able to secure “new employment, with wages, for over 700 of the apprentices”. Ms Milton said that the CITB “is working progressively to find alternative employers for all those affected”.
She added: “At present, it has been agreed that all former Carillion apprentices will continue to be paid beyond 31 January, whilst alternative employers are being sought.”
The government is under mounting pressure to find new employers for the apprentices left jobless in the wake of the building firm’s collapse.
Labour’s shadow education secretary Angela Rayner has called on the government to ensure that Carillion apprentices “are all able to complete their training and get the skills that both they and the wider economy need”.
The government’s response to the crisis has been criticised by trade unions, with the GMB’s national officer, Rehana Azam, describing it as “inadequate and inept”.
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