Adult apprenticeships - whos done one?

[2011G6E]

Every interaction I have had with the apprentice scheme makes me loath it more and more.
I know guys who have been in their thirties with families who have had to fall back on an adult apprenticeship and are virtually in the poorhouse.
My own son was working as a trades assistant for a few years in a furniture place, was offered an apprenticeship, and once he started the work was exactly the same but his wage was cut by more than half.

It's criminal...employers can claim they "aren't getting value from the employee until they're trained" or some such rubbish, but it;s basically cheap labour. Our other son did a hairdressers apprenticeship and was getting $6 an hour!!! In 2013 for christs sake!! He ended up leaving after a couple of years...no way you can live on that "wage" on your own. If that was an Asian country employing young people for that level, people would be rallying in the streets. And if they're under 25 and single, forget any government assistance from Centerlink like rent assistance or a health care card...they're "not an independent person" and have to rely on mum and dad to supply them with everything until they're 25. Way to squash someones self esteem..."You're living on your own, 200km from your parents in another city, working for a living...but you're not independent...you still have to rely on mummy and daddy".


Interestingly, the apprentice pay wage idea goes back to the forties, when people would quite often leave school at 12 or 13 to start work (and obviously be living at home) especially in manual labour jobs and engineering factories, and be living at home where they didn't need a big wage. By the time they were a qualified tradesman, they were not even twenty normally, and ready to start working life and a family.
Now kids stay at school until they're often 17 or 18, sometimes do a bit of uni, and enter the workforce proper at maybe 19 or 20 or older. Some already have a kid and are living on thier own when they start an apprenticeship.

Times have moved on, society has changed...but the concept of slave-level apprenticeship wages still hangs on after 70 or 80 years...