An excellent question, thank you very much.
It's actually quite the opposite. Larger employers tend not to participate in the apprenticeship system to the extent that we certainly believe they should. The bigger the employer, the deeper the pockets, the more likely they are to hire experienced journeypeople away from small or medium-sized enterprises. My stakeholders refer to them as “poachers”.
Most of the companies that hire and train apprentices are on the smaller side. They're the ones that believe and certainly understand the competitive advantages they receive through training and certifying their existing workforce. Part of the challenge for them, though—and, in fact, one of the reasons they sometimes cite a reluctance to continue participating in the apprenticeship system—is the fear that if they train these apprentices through to journeypersons, they'll lose them to a larger employer just for the sake of a few dollars.