[cameronbrown]

I'm going to tackle this from the perspective of an apprenticeship (which is what I'm doing). In general it seems similar to hiring tech interns - they're expensive but can pay off if you really invest into it. Few things to note:

1) Usually they pay apprentices less but apprentices can still provide huge value to the team they're working on (after a while).

2) I have no solid data on this, but I assume apprentices have a lower churn rate/stay at their company longer.

3) The biggie: Some countries basically force companies to have an apprenticeship programme. In the UK, there's a levy which effectively makes a company put aside 0.4% of their payroll for funding apprenticeships - which nicely incentivises companies to do something that would otherwise be unprofitable.