Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business) Share this | Hansard source

As I just said, we put in place the supporting apprentices and trainees wage subsidy to bring into the system 100,000 new apprentices and trainees. But, of course, when COVID-19 hit, we understood as a government that we needed to provide critical support to, in particular, small businesses, for them to keep the apprentices or trainees they already had in training on the job. That was one of the first economic responses that the Morrison government put in place in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. The supporting apprentices and trainees wage subsidy has now supported more than 58,500 small and medium businesses to keep 117,000 apprentices and trainees in work today, because that's where we need them—on the job. Over 17,000 electricians, 22,000 carpenters, joiners and bricklayers and 5,500 hairdressers have all been kept on the job because of the policy that the coalition government, the Morrison government, put in place.