Knitwear apprenticeship could get bigger in Scottish borders
12/12/2012
Fourteen local knitwear manufacturers, typically making high-end cashmere clothing for luxury brands, began working together in 2011to train new recruits and address the problem of high numbers of the existing workforce nearing retirement age at the same time. Textile and knitwear production in the Scottish Borders is an industry with a long tradition, but intense rivalry among companies and communities meant some of the players in the initiative had gone generations without so much as sitting down in the same room together.
Textile clothing and leather industry skills provider Creative Skillset and other agencies, including Skills Development Scotland and Scottish Enterprise, were instrumental in encouraging the new approach.
At a conference on the subject of preserving and spreading skills in textile, clothing and leather throughout the European Union, which took place in Brussels on December 12, Annie Warburton of Creative Skillset said 50 new apprentices had taken part in the programme in the first year and that 90 more new apprentices were preparing to join.
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