8 Training at Work: A Comparison of U.S. and British Youths

Recent initiatives, such as Apprenticeship 2000 and the Department of Labor report Work-Based Training (1989), have urged a reexamination of apprenticeship training in the United States in order to bridge the skill needs of noncollege-bound youths. Much of this renewed focus has been inspired by the successful experience with apprenticeships in Germany. While there is much to learn from the German experience, many of the supporting structures of the apprenticeship programs in Germany will be difficult to replicate in the United States (see Soskice, chap. 1 in this volume, for a review of these structures). These structures include the long-term relationships between banks and firms, the greater link between schools and postschool training, and the influence of local chambers of commerce on the number of apprenticeships offered. Therefore, an examination of an apprenticeship program in a country which has an institutional structure closer to that in the United States would be informative. Such a comparison can be made with apprenticeship schemes in Great Britain in the 1970s. In 1964 Industrial Training Boards (ITBs) were created in Britain to promote the skill development of the work force. In particular, these ITBs could impose levies on employers to raise training funds to support an extensive apprenticeship program, and additional funds were provided by the