Youth Training and the Local Reconstruction of Skill: Evidence from the Engineering Industry of North West England, 1981–88

Abstract

The impact of state intervention on changing patterns of skill formation and utilisation is examined with particular reference to youth employment in the engineering industry in the North West region of England over the period 1981–88. The apprenticeship system is being gradually superseded by the Youth Training Scheme (YTS) as the dominant mode of skill formation. This process of supersession, which in the paper is termed that of ‘colonisation’, is shown to be a highly uneven one, YTS having different impacts in different places. In case studies of the impact of the scheme on two local labour markets, Preston and Crewe, links are established between patterns of colonisation by YTS and (1) the nature of the preexisting training institutions, and (2) the state of the local labour market. YTS is shown to be bringing about far-reaching consequences for the process of skill formation and for patterns of labour-market segmentation.