SMΕs often struggle to provide apprenticeship opportunities. Some of the most common reasons include: a lack of training infrastructure and personnel to supervise apprentices, as well as insufficient expertise and capacity to manage complex rules, employment law and administrative requirements.

The SERFA “Services For Apprenticeships” project aims to:

• Better understand barriers faced by SMEs when engaging with apprenticeship schemes and offer vacancies,
• Identify the SMEs needs to overcome those barriers,
• Support businesses in identifying their potential to offer apprenticeships vacancies and the associated benefits,
• Co-design with SMEs, the services, tools and products helping remove the barriers and support SMEs in offering more apprenticeships and
• Promote the value of apprenticeships in SMEs involving SME employing apprentices.

The 2^nd meeting for the SERFA project took place in Valencia, Spain on the 7^th and 8^th of March.

During the two-day meeting, the partners from United Kingdom, Spain, Austria, Greece, Germany, France, Poland and Slovenia had the opportunity to discuss about the results of the survey that carried out in each country and devoted essentially to the recording of the needs of SMEs in recruiting apprenticeships. They also discussed about the dissemination activities that will be made in order for the project to gain publicity. Finally, they discussed about the Skills Brokerage Methodology that will be developed in the next few months.