THE vital role skilled young people are set to play in growing the economy both locally and nationally was revealed at The Citizen and Gloucestershire Echo's second Apprentice Awards.
Some 260 business people attended the presentation dinner for the awards whose joint title sponsors were The Warranty Group and Gloucestershire College.
And the college's Principal Designate Matthew Burgess praised the five-year apprentice campaign that Gloucestershire Media and the college started and have led.
"Apprenticeships are particularly special. They represent a valued route into a career, an opportunity to gain nationally recognised qualifications, job specific skills and hands-on experience in the workplace doing real work with real responsibilities," said Mr Burgess.
"And while there has been a long heritage of apprenticeships in many industries, there has been a real shift in the profile of apprenticeships in recent years.
"In 2008, with youth unemployment rising, Gloucestershire College got together with Gloucestershire Media to see how together opportunities could be created for young people to bite back at the recession
"And what happened next was testimony to what can be achieved when the community, our business community, pull together behind a common purpose.
"The Apprenticeship Challenge campaign was launched to promote the value of apprenticeships to businesses and to create opportunities.
"Pledges were signed and awareness raised of their value and those pledges turned into action. The 100 apprentices in 100 days target was quickly smashed."
Mr Burgess said since then, Gloucestershire College alone has seen over 2,000 young people achieve their apprenticeships.
"A recent Government study estimates the return to the taxpayer in terms of wealth created through greater productivity by obtaining that apprenticeship qualification to be in excess of £150,000 per apprentice. Better than any other qualification," he said.
"On that basis alone, the apprentices that qualify each year, just with the college, generate a staggering economic return of £75million.
"Of course, it is not just about numbers, it is the impact on the lives of those apprentices and the businesses they work for which has been enormous."
Mr Burgess said Gloucestershire's apprentice campaigns had been copied in other parts of the country, but never bettered.
"Latest figures suggest there are now nationally in excess of a million 16-24-year- olds unemployed, more than one in five," he said.
"There are 11 applicants for every apprenticeship vacancy. So the need to promote apprenticeships to employers of young people has never been greater.
"And the best ambassadors of those apprenticeships are the employers who have recruited and benefited from them. People like our co-title sponsors The Warranty Group who every year invest in staff and support apprenticeships and do so much for the local community in the Forest of Dean."
He added: "I am proud of the part the college has played in delivering apprenticeships in recent years. I'm proud of the business community that has come together in a unique way to support these young people
"But most of all, I'm proud of the apprentices, to see how they have developed during training and progressed. To see how they have gone on to set up businesses and recruit apprentices."
