FAS has registered the highest number of apprentices for 15 years, to help meet employers' demands for skilled workers in the present boom. There are now more than 16,000 apprentices and pre-apprentice trainees, compared with 16,307 last year and only 6,555 in 1996. The biggest increase has been in the number of electricians. The intake for 1996 was 924, compared with 1,757 last year. Other major trades where expansion has been significant include carpentry/joinery, where numbers have increased from 728 to 1,180, plumbers, where numbers have increased from 358 to 586, bricklayers, where numbers are up from 175 to 359 between 1996 and 1998 and motor mechanics, where the numbers are up from 338 to 432. The transfer from the old, time served apprenticeship to a standards based system is almost complete. The first standards based courses were only introduced in 1993, when there were 397 apprentices recruited on this basis, while 12,484 were training on the time-served model.

Today there are only 605 time served apprenticeships left in the FAS system. The remaining 17,580 are on standards based courses.

However, there is a continuing reluctance by women to enter apprenticeships and pre-apprentice training courses. Out of 16,307 trainees, only 104 are women. Amongst the 133 trainees on pre-apprentice courses only two are women. Of the main body of 15,856 entrants only 102 are women and there are no women amongst mature (over 21) entrants to the schemes.

FAS said that the rapid growth in the economy was making the supply of extra skilled craft workers especially important for the construction and transport sectors. It also emphasised the need for internationally recognised qualifications and said that these provided access to both higher education and higher level job opportunities. Only 4 per cent of apprentices came from disadvantaged backgrounds with no educational qualifications. More than 55 per cent of new entrants in 1999 had a Leaving Certificate or equivalent qualification.