Mr Davies - who is a long time campaigner for the return of traditional apprenticeships - was speaking after the publication of the Richard Review into apprenticeships yesterday.
“There are over one million young unemployed in this country and they are becoming totally demoralised by the job market. They have to be given confidence in the training and apprenticeships we can offer them. Otherwise, we will be dealing the financial ramifications of our failure for decades to come,” said Mr Davies – who was an investment banker before creating his property maintenance company, aspect.co.uk
Entrepreneur Doug Richard had been tasked by Business Secretary Vince Cable and Education Secretary Michael Gove to re-evaluate the role of the apprenticeship.
His conclusions were that the definition of an apprenticeship had been "stretched too far" and that schemes which only lasted a few weeks were incapable of providing real skills.
“The traditional apprenticeship has, in the worst cases, dissolved into little more than a source of cheap labour and a means to claim government grants,” said Mr Davies.
“Employers know how long apprenticeships should be to teach different skills that they require not training agencies,” he said.
“aspect.co.uk has returned to a system of old fashioned apprenticeships for our young workers. We are very pleased with all the young employees that we have hired and I can only urge other employers that if they can give young people an opportunity to demonstrate how keen they are to work; they will be astonished with the results,” said Mr Davies.
aspect.co.uk organised a series of apprentice boot camps this year to select candidates for their apprenticeships. Youngsters were put through a series of fitness, literacy and numeracy tests.
“The individuals who were prepared to contribute the most to a boot camp were the individuals who aspect.co.uk benefited most from employing,” said Mr Davies.
