On the day that Gordon Brown promised to “encourage a whole new generation of young Britons to embrace ambition and British enterprise”, TUI Travel UK & Ireland (TUI UK), parent company of Thomson and First Choice, has reaffirmed its pledge to create 500 new apprenticeship places for young people in 2010.

TUI UK has an established Apprenticeship programme, and has trained over 3,500 apprentices in the last five years.  For 2010, TUI UK will increase available places by 50%, from 1,000 to 1,500 primarily in retail and overseas positions.

Jacky Simmonds, HR Director for TUI Travel UK & Ireland comments; “The business community needs to act quickly in order to harness young talent, and use it to best effect, rather than allow our young people to stay out of work for months and years on end. At TUI UK we are committed to furthering our staff, many of whom are 18 to 24, through training and  investment and the apprenticeship programme is testament to this commitment.”

Jacky Simmonds says that there are real benefits to the companies involved as well. “From a business perspective, our Apprenticeship programme provides areas of our business with enthusiastic and loyal staff. For example, in our retail division, apprentices frequently feature in our Top Sellers list, progress quickly to assistant retail managers and retail managers and stay an average of two years longer then regular agents.”

TUI UK was among the first companies to sign up to the Government’s Backing Young Britain campaign when it launched at the start of September and there are now another 150 other companiesinvolved.