Beancounters will not get rid of apprenticeships in tough times for 2 main reasons. One being the awful publicity but mainly the ammount of funding it will lose from the government virtually makes it a nonsense idea. Proper modern apprenticeships did/do involve money from the government to subsidise the apprentice.
As for nimrod and other such experinced guys, I havent heard of this personally as it isn't aircraft on the civil register, hence I see more than a few connies working weekends to get experience in the civil sector. The training in the mob does give you the benefit of only needing 1 or 2 years exp rather than 5 but if you have all your licences you still need that 1/2 years on civil, that you would already have had if you had done an apprenticeship