📚 How Does the UK Apprenticeship Levy Affect Employer Provision of Apprenticeships | 英国学徒税如何影响企业提供学徒岗位
The Apprenticeship Levy, introduced in April 2017, is one of the most significant labour-market interventions in modern UK economic policy. It is a payroll tax on large employers that is hypothecated to training, meaning the money raised can only be reclaimed by paying for apprenticeship training in England. Understanding its effect on the number, level and quality of apprenticeship places offered by firms requires a combination of tax-incidence theory, marginal-cost analysis and careful use of empirical evidence.
英国学徒税（Apprenticeship Levy）自 2017 年 4 月起实施，是现代英国劳动力市场政策中最重大的干预之一。它是对大型雇主征收的一种工资税，且专项用于培训——即所征资金只能通过为英格兰地区的学徒培训付费来收回。要理解它对企业的学徒岗位数量、层级与质量的影响，需要把税负归宿理论、边际成本分析和实证数据结合起来考察。
1. What Is the Apprenticeship Levy? | 什么是学徒税？
The Apprenticeship Levy is a UK-wide tax of 0.5% on an employer’s annual pay bill, with an annual allowance of £15,000. This means only employers with a pay bill above roughly £3 million actually make a net payment, since 0.5% of £3 million is exactly £15,000. It is collected monthly through PAYE alongside income tax and National Insurance, which makes it cheap for HMRC to collect and effectively unavoidable for firms that fall above the threshold.
英国学徒税是对雇主年度工资总额征收的 0.5% 税费，年免税额为 15,000 英镑。因此，只有年薪总支出超过约 300 万英镑的雇主才需要实际净缴纳——因为 300 万英镑的 0.5% 恰好是 15,000 英镑。该税通过 PAYE 系统与个人所得税、国民保险一并按月征收，这使得税务局征收成本低，对超过门槛的企业而言也几乎无法规避。
The stated aims were threefold: to raise additional funding for apprenticeships, to give employers greater control over training through the “employer-led” system, and to create a “train or pay” incentive so that firms that benefit from skilled labour contribute to producing it. Roughly 19,000 employers pay the levy out of about 1.4 million UK employers, so the policy concentrates its effects on a small but economically dominant group of large firms.
该税的目标有三个：为学徒制筹集更多资金；通过”雇主主导”的制度让雇主对培训有更大掌控权；建立”要么培训、要么缴税”的激励机制，使受益于技能劳动力的企业为技能培养出资。全英约 140 万家雇主中，只有约 1.9 万家缴纳学徒税，因此该政策的效果集中在一个规模小但经济上占主导地位的大型企业群体上。
Annual levy liability = 0.005 × pay bill − £15,000 (floored at 0)
2. The Mechanics: How Employers Recover Their Money | 运作机制：雇主如何取回资金
Levy-paying employers can only withdraw their contributions by registering on the Digital Apprenticeship Service (DAS) and purchasing apprenticeship training from an approved provider. The government adds a 10% top-up, so £1 of levy becomes £1.10 of spending power, but the funds expire after 24 months if they are not used. This creates a strong “use it or lose it” incentive that is separate from any genuine skill shortage.
缴税雇主只能通过注册”数字学徒服务”（DAS）平台，并向经批准的培训机构购买学徒培训，才能提取自己的缴款。政府额外补贴 10%，即 1 英镑缴款变为 1.10 英镑的购买力，但资金若 24 个月内未使用就会过期。这就形成了一种与真实技能短缺无关的强烈”不用即作废”激励。
Critically, the levy applies across the UK but the funds are spent only on apprenticeships in England; Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland receive a population-based share as block grant. Employers therefore face different effective prices and rules depending on where their staff are located, which complicates the decision to create a place.
关键在于，学徒税在全英征收，但资金只用于英格兰的学徒培训；苏格兰、威尔士和北爱尔兰以整笔拨款形式获得按人口分配的份额。因此，雇主会因为员工所在地不同而面对不同的有效价格和规则，这使”是否开设学徒岗位”的决策更加复杂。
| Employer type | Levy payment | Training cost borne | Key incentive |
| Large (pay bill > £3m) | 0.5% above £15,000 allowance | £0 up to DAS balance; 5% co-investment beyond it | Spend expiring funds |
| Small (pay bill < £3m) | None | 5% co-investment; government pays 95% | Low cash price but high fixed cost |
3. The Levy as a Payroll Tax: Who Really Bears It? | 作为工资税的学徒税：税负由谁承担
Economists treat the levy as a tax on labour. Its incidence — who ultimately bears the burden — depends on the relative elasticities of labour demand and labour supply. Because the demand for labour is a derived demand and is relatively inelastic in the short run for skilled workers, much of the cost is likely absorbed by employers through lower profits, at least initially. Over time, part of the cost may be passed on to workers via slower wage growth or to consumers via higher prices where demand is price-inelastic.
经济学家把学徒税视为一种劳动税。其归宿——即最终由谁承担——取决于劳动需求与劳动供给的相对弹性。由于劳动需求是派生需求，且对熟练工人而言短期内相对缺乏弹性，所以至少在初期，大部分成本可能由雇主通过利润下降来吸收。长期来看，部分成本可能通过工资增长放缓转嫁给员工，或在需求缺乏价格弹性时通过涨价转嫁给消费者。
The crucial point for this question is that the levy is largely independent of how much training a firm actually buys. For a levy payer, the tax bill is the same whether it hires 5 apprentices or 500. It is therefore close to a lump-sum cost at firm level, which by itself does not change the marginal decision about whether to take on one more apprentice. The behavioural effect comes from the recovery mechanism, not the charge itself.
对本问题而言关键的一点是：税额与企业的实际培训购买量基本无关。对缴税企业来说，无论招 5 个还是 500 个学徒，税单都一样。因此在企业层面它近似于一次性固定成本，本身并不改变”是否多招一个学徒”的边际决策。真正的行为效应来自资金回收机制，而不是征税本身。
4. The Subsidy Effect and Marginal Cost | 补贴效应与边际成本
Once an employer has a DAS account with a positive balance, the effective marginal cost of the next apprenticeship place, up to the value of that balance, is zero for training costs. A rational profit-maximising firm should therefore expand apprenticeship numbers until the marginal benefit equals marginal cost, which in principle implies a large increase in demand from levy payers.
当雇主的 DAS 账户有余額时，只要不超过该余额，下一个学徒岗位在培训成本上的有效边际成本为零。因此，追求利润最大化的理性企业应当扩大学徒数量，直到边际收益等于边际成本——理论上这意味着缴税企业对学徒的需求会大幅上升。
MC = £0 while DAS balance > training cost; MC = 0.05 × funding band maximum thereafter
However, three frictions stop this from producing an unlimited rise in places. First, apprenticeship training must meet the funding rules, including a minimum number of off-the-job training hours, which raises the non-wage cost of a place. Second, funding bands cap the price the government will pay, so expensive courses become unattractive. Third, and most importantly, an apprenticeship requires a genuine job role and supervision, so the firm’s demand is constrained by its output plans rather than by the balance in its account.
然而，有三种摩擦使学徒岗位不会无限增加。第一，学徒培训必须符合拨款规则，包括最低的脱产培训时数要求，这提高了岗位的非工资成本。第二，拨款上限（funding bands）限制了政府愿意支付的价格，使昂贵课程变得不具吸引力。第三，也最重要的一点是，学徒需要真实的岗位职责和督导，因此企业需求受制于其产出计划，而不是账户余额。
5. Substitution and Deadweight Loss | 替代效应与无谓损失
Because levy funds can only be spent on approved apprenticeship standards, they change the relative price of apprenticeship training compared with other forms of training such as in-house courses, professional qualifications or graduate schemes. Firms substitute towards the subsidised option, which is a rational response but not necessarily an increase in total training.
由于学徒税资金只能用于经批准的学徒标准，它改变了学徒培训相对于其他培训形式（如内部课程、职业资格证书或毕业生培训计划）的相对价格。企业会转向受补贴的选项——这虽是理性反应，却不一定意味着总培训量的增加。
This is the classic deadweight loss problem. If an employer would have trained those staff anyway, the levy simply relabels existing spending, and the Exchequer has raised a tax and given it back with administration costs attached. Evidence of rebadging — for example, converting existing management or IT training into Level 6 and Level 7 apprenticeships — suggests a significant share of post-2017 growth in higher-level starts reflects substitution rather than new human capital.
这就是典型的无谓损失问题。如果雇主本来就会培训这些员工，学徒税只是把既有支出”换个标签”，政府等于征了一笔税、又还回去，还附加了管理成本。所谓”重新贴牌”的证据——例如把现有的管理或 IT 培训改造成 6 级、7 级学徒——表明 2017 年后高等层级学徒数量的增长中有相当部分是替代而非新增人力资本。
There is also the deeper market-failure justification. Training generates positive externalities and firms fear poaching, so a free market under-provides training; a levy can, in principle, correct this. But a corrective tax only improves welfare if the revenue is spent on genuinely additional training of good quality.
还有更深层的市场失灵理由：培训会产生正外部性，企业又担心”被挖人”，因此自由市场会培训不足；从理论上说，学徒税可以纠正这一点。但只有把税收用于真正”增量”的、质量良好的培训，矫正税才能改善福利。
6. The Evidence: What Happened to Apprenticeship Starts? | 实证证据：学徒人数发生了什么变化？
Aggregate data show that apprenticeship starts in England fell substantially after the levy was announced and implemented in 2017, and have never returned to pre-levy levels. Total starts dropped from around 509,000 in 2015/16 to roughly 376,000 in 2017/18, then recovered slightly before the pandemic pushed numbers down again. Even after the recovery in 2021/22, starts remain roughly a third below the 2015/16 peak.
总体数据显示，2017 年学徒税公布并实施后，英格兰的学徒起始人数大幅下降，且从未恢复到征税前水平。学徒起始总数从 2015/16 年的约 50.9 万降至 2017/18 年的约 37.6 万，随后略有回升，但疫情又使人数再次下降。即便在 2021/22 年回升后，起始人数仍比 2015/16 年的峰值低约三分之一。
| Academic year | Approx. starts (England) | Context |
| 2015/16 | ~509,000 | Pre-levy peak |
| 2017/18 | ~376,000 | First full levy year |
| 2018/19 | ~393,000 | Partial recovery |
| 2020/21 | ~321,000 | COVID-19 disruption |
| 2022/23 | ~337,000 | Stabilising below pre-levy level |
| 2023/24 | ~335,000 | Broadly flat |
Yet the levy raised roughly £3–4 billion a year, far more than was drawn down. Substantial sums expired in DAS accounts and were returned to the Treasury, meaning the policy raised revenue from employers without recycling it into training. That gap is the single strongest piece of evidence that the levy did not straightforwardly increase employer provision.
然而，学徒税每年筹集约 30 亿至 40 亿英镑，远高于实际提取使用的金额。大量资金在 DAS 账户中过期并被退回财政部，意味着该政策向雇主征了税，却没有把这些钱再循环到培训中。这一缺口是”学徒税并未简单地增加企业培训供给”的最有力证据。
7. Composition Effects: A Shift Upmarket | 结构效应：向高层级转移
The fall in total starts hides a dramatic change in composition. Intermediate (Level 2) starts collapsed from roughly 290,000 in 2015/16 to well under 100,000 in recent years, while Level 4, 5, 6 and 7 starts grew strongly, including degree apprenticeships. In other words, the levy changed what employers bought at least as much as how much they bought.
起始总数的下降掩盖了结构的剧烈变化。中级（2 级）学徒起始人数从 2015/16 年的约 29 万骤降至近年不足 10 万，而 4、5、6、7 级学徒（含学位学徒）则强劲增长。换言之，学徒税对”雇主买什么”的改变，至少不亚于对”买多少”的改变。
Three explanations dominate. Large levy-paying firms tend to be in sectors such as banking, professional services, utilities and digital, where higher-level training fits existing career structures. Higher funding bands make Level 6 and 7 courses more attractive because they absorb more of the balance. And smaller employers, who traditionally supplied the bulk of Level 2 places, are outside the levy and face weaker financial incentives to expand.
主要有三种解释。缴纳学徒税的大企业多集中在银行、专业服务、公用事业和数字行业，其现有职业结构更适合高层级培训。较高的拨款上限使 6 级、7 级
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