article_snippet: The rate for apprentices will rise sharply by 57p from £2.73 per hour to £3.30 - 50p more than had been recommended by the independent Low Pay Commission.
article_snippet: Ministers said the proposed small hike in the rate for apprentices failed to reflect efforts to boost the status of vocational alternatives as a way into well-paid jobs - and went beyond the recommendation for the second time in three years.
article_snippet: I have been talking to apprentices here who after two or three years as an apprentice could be earning £25-£26,000 a year.
article_snippet: Mr Clegg said the 'vast majority' of employers already paid apprentices at least that sum but that it was right to significantly increase the minimum. '
article_snippet: that is still pretty low, even for apprentices to get by on.'
article_snippet: CBI director-general John Cridland said the overruling on the apprentice rate was 'disappointing'. '
article_snippet: Concerns were also raised by Federation of Small Businesses chairman John Allan who said the large rise came on top of other increased apprenticeship costs and would have to be 'monitored closely', and by British Retail Consortium director general Helen Dickinson who warned that any significant departure 'risks upsetting the fine balance struck by the LPC and potentially negatively impacting workers, the economy or both'.
article_snippet: But Sharon Spice, director of student recruitment at the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW), said the large rise would 'help remove some of the stigma around apprenticeships being a second rate career option, making some of the stigma around apprenticeships being a second rate career option more attractive to young people' though more funding was needed to support small businesses in offering some of the stigma around apprenticeships being a second rate career option.
article_snippet: TUC general secretary Frances O'Grady said there should have been a 'much bolder increase' in the main rate. '