Subway has found a way to avoid paying its fast food workers the national minimum wage: by creating an apprenticeship.

Workers on Subway apprenticeship are to be paid just £3.40 an hour for a 35 hour, 7-day week.

The apprenticeship scheme is a great way for people to learn a skilled trade on the job – it's how almost every plumber, carpenter, or electrician gets their start. 

But you've probably never heard of one to work in a fast food restaurant. Even from the job description, it's unclear how this position will be any different from Subway's regular full time staff. This exploitation of young workers needs to stop.

If this position was gearing its apprentices up to take on management responsibilities, I could actually see how an apprenticeship would be justified.

But the role description has none of that. In fact, it sounds like the absolute basics of what you'd expect a fast food worker to do.

And to add insult to injury, the apprenticeship is 14 months long. It's hard to believe that it would take that long to learn the skills required to succeed in the role. 

What this highlights is a clear area of the government's apprenticeship scheme that needs fixing. Before we do that, though, we need to make sure Subway doesn't get away with underpaying its own employees. 

More information