Abstract
This paper will explore the implications for workplace learning of changes in the demand for skills across industry and commerce and, as a consequence, the lifelong learning prospects of young employees.

In doing so, it will examine the ways in which the United Kingdom's (UK) flagship youth training scheme, the Modern Apprenticeship, needs to develop, improve, and transform itself into a contemporary model of apprenticeship.

Although the immediate policy context for this paper is that of the UK, the paper is set within a broader landscape of global economic and societal change, and evolving lifestyles.

The paper calls for policymakers to remove their rose-tinted spectacles and intervene to ensure that all young people have access to substantive learning opportunities regardless of their workplace setting.