Apprentices in Maharashtra get highest stipend

Maharashtra pays the highest stipends to apprentices—159 per cent more than the minimum wages — followed by Andhra Pradesh at 132 per cent, Tamil Nadu at 112 per cent and Gujarat at 84 per cent. The reason for the high stipends is the increasing demand for skilled talent combined with amendments in the Apprenticeship Act.

As per the report by Team Lease Skill University, the median stipend is about 41 per cent more than the applicable minimum wages in most of the sectors and urban areas.

According to the report, apprentices under the other employability scheme (OEES) got paid 7.66 per cent higher stipend than what was paid under the Apprenticeship Act.

Despite the high stipends, it was discovered that candidates were rarely satisfied with the stipends they received.

Candidates in Mumbai were found to be receiving stipends 36 per cent lower than their expectations. The average stipend was Rs 9,400 per month, while most candidates expected to be paid Rs 12,800! In Delhi and Bengaluru, the variation in percentage in terms of what was expected by the candidates and what they actually got paid was 71 per cent and 42 per cent, respectively.

The report reveals that the more qualified the candidate was the higher the stipend she/he received. The highest stipend was paid to postgraduates and engineering graduates across sectors, according to other employability schemes (OEES) as well as the Apprentice Act.

Non-engineering graduates were paid higher than diploma holders in construction, banking and financial services, and tourism and hospitality, while in other sectors they were paid on par.

Almost 46 to 77 per cent of the employers surveyed expected applicants to have knowledge of essential soft skills and almost 63 per cent expected them to be aware of the domain.