Morrisons has pledged to create more than 20,000 apprenticeships in the next year, and offers training in bakery, butchery and retail skills, at Level 2 (equivalent to five good GCSEs).
The supermarket is just one major UK employer making a commitment to apprenticeships this week. Crossrail has promised to take on 400 apprentices in the next year through its contractors, and B&Q has said it aims to double its apprenticeship intake to 300 this September.
Tesco has also announced 2,000 apprenticeship schemes for staff in 2010. In 2009, the retailer trained 865 apprentices in 300 stores across the UK through Tesco's 2009 apprenticeship programme.
David Potts, retail director at Tesco, said: "Apprenticeship schemes are a great way for us to deliver on-the-job training for lots of employees. We are delighted to announce our commitment to more than double the number of schemes on offer this year to 2,000. At Tesco we believe that good quality training should be available to all our employees and seeing people from the age of 16 to 62 gain confidence and learn new skills through the scheme is fantastic."
