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STAFFORD, England — For the last two years, Josh Younger, 19, has been learning how to fuse heavy steel pipes used in nuclear power plants, spending hours each day behind a welding helmet and surrounded by the acrid smell of burned metal.
The job, called high-integrity welding, is one that most young people in Britain probably do not know or care much about. But it is essential to keeping the economy turning. And so are many other jobs that British youths tend to overlook.
Despite relatively high unemployment in Britain, especially among young people, there is a marked shortage of skilled manufacturing workers. The problem is so acute that the government and industrial companies are behind an unprecedented push to get teenagers like Mr. Younger into apprenticeships, to close that gap.
The programs are untested and face many obstacles. But as an apprentice at the British unit of Alstom, a French utilities and transport construction group, Mr. Younger is the type of worker that Britain sorely needs as it tries to rebuild its flagging industrial base, compete against other countries and improve its trade balance.
“I wanted to get a hands-on experience, and I was sick of doing A-levels,” said Mr. Younger, referring to Britain’s college entrance exams. Even with a university degree, he said, “you’re not guaranteed a job, nor do you have any work experience.”
His friends at university are saddled with student debt, Mr. Younger said, while he is already earning an annual salary of about 23,000 pounds, or $38,000. And annual wages for an experienced welder can top £40,000 — twice the national median income.
The British government is trying to catch up with countries like Germany and Switzerland, which have retained their competitive edge with the help of well-honed apprenticeship programs with ancient roots in the guild system. But even those countries face the same problems that are hobbling Europe’s labor market, as too few graduates and long-time unemployed have the skills needed to fill the growing number of innovation-based jobs.
A third of employers across Europe have said that the lack of skills is causing major business problems in terms of higher costs, insufficient quality and lost time, according to a recent survey by the consulting firm McKinsey. At least 27 percent of the 2,600 companies surveyed said they had left an entry-level vacancy unfilled over the past year because there were no eligible applicants.
Statistics like that, and the fact that about a quarter of people under 25 are jobless in Europe, prompted Britain to act. A record 868,700 people did apprenticeships in Britain last year, up 77 percent from three years ago. The government committed £1.57 billion to the training last year, about half of that to programs for 16- to 18-year-olds.
“We’re 10 years too late in being proactive in getting apprenticeships,” said Jim Mcilrath, a welding engineering manager at Alstom who is in charge of the training center in Stafford.
Only a few hundred high-integrity welders are left in Britain, Mr. Mcilrath said, and there are too few younger ones coming along to replace them. He is worried that work on a nuclear power station set to begin in the next few years at Hinkley Point in Somerset will absorb all of Alstom’s welders, meaning a shortage of welders for other projects.
“We need skilled workers just to keep the lights on in this country,” he said.
The complaint is heard across Britain’s manufacturing industries, with smaller businesses down the supply chain bearing the brunt of the shortage. Even at a big company like Alstom, there are not enough people technically competent to work in a unit that specializes in smart grids, a type of digital technology that delivers electricity efficiently.
According to a recent survey conducted by EEF, a British trade group, four out of five manufacturers currently have trouble recruiting. Those that do apply for jobs, they said, often lack even basic technical skills.
About 2.74 million new jobs in British manufacturing are expected by 2020, of which 1.86 million will require engineering skills, EEF said. Companies will need to double both the current number of qualified recruits and of apprenticeships to fill those positions.
Britain is among the worst in the developed world at equipping its young people with numeracy and literacy skills, according to a recent survey by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. A separate report about the career aspirations of high school students showed them to be heavily skewed toward jobs in acting, media and professional sports. Engineers and skilled workers were as unpopular as locksmiths and plumbers.
“Without that manufacturing base that other countries have, we will continue to be in a deficit, and I don’t know how long that will be sustainable,” said Tony Dolphin, the chief economist at the Institute for Public Policy Research, a research group in London. “If we’re not paying our way in the world, we’re losing the global race.”
Brompton Bicycle is an example of how such programs can help. The apprenticeship system it started more than 20 years ago has helped turn a small builder of handmade foldable bikes into a global leader in that category.
All of the employees at Brompton, which is based in Middlesex, near London, start out as apprentices on the factory floor. The system helps to ensure that the intellectual property and craftsmanship stays in Britain.
Liam Brooker, who started as an apprentice at age 19, is now, six years later, Brompton’s star at brazing — a complex form of welding that is key to keeping the bikes’ frames supple and light.
“Brompton has made the rule that ‘Made in England’ involves highly skilled people,” Mr. Brooker said during a break. “It makes me proud when I see a Brompton bike. It’s a real craft.”
But how much apprenticeships will improve Britain’s employment picture more generally is an open question. Critics, including academics who study youth unemployment, say the quality of the programs needs to improve and doubt that increasing the numbers will translate into more jobs for young people.
Some manufacturers have said that young people do not have basic skills and at times not even the motivation and self-discipline to follow through with an apprenticeship. One executive at a manufacturing company, who asked not to be identified, complained that one young woman asked to start the workday at 10 a.m. because she was not an early riser and to finish before 4 p.m. so she could get home for her favorite television show.
Part of the challenge for Britain is turning around the bad reputation that apprenticeships can have, often being associated with dull, menial tasks that evoke images of Oliver Twist, the Dickens character who faced life as an apprentice to a chimney sweep.
Britain, like Germany, has a record of apprenticeships back to medieval times, when boys were hired as young as 7 and often worked in brutal conditions. But the nature of apprenticeships improved with the advent of tighter labor laws.
By the late 19th century, apprenticeships had expanded from artisan trades to newer industries like engineering and shipbuilding, and later to trades like plumbing and electrical work. But they began to disappear in the 1960s as manufacturing activity shrank and full-time education became available to everyone. Many people started viewing apprentices as youngsters who were not intelligent enough to go to university.
“In the culture of the country, putting apprenticeships on a pedestal takes time,” Matthew Hancock, Britain’s minister of state for skills and enterprise, said in an interview. “It’s only when the training becomes high quality that apprenticeships will be widely regarded as being as good as an academic education.”
Mr. Younger, the apprentice welder at Alstom, says he is happy with the direction he sees his career heading. While he has two more years to go in his apprenticeship, he intends to pursue degrees related to welding engineering and management at a local university, all sponsored by the company.
“When I began my apprenticeship I hadn’t done any welding before and had to start from the basics,” he said. “But it’s a good opportunity. Nowadays, for young people to get a job, it seems that experience matters more. And so far, I haven’t been struggling for money.”
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