At a time when the number of young people out of work in London is continuing to soar, Metro Bank, the first new high street bank to start up in the UK in the past hundred years, is taking on 150 apprentices.
With a starting salary of £16,000, each apprentice will have the chance of joining Metro Bank after a three-month probation period.
Metro's Chief Executive, Craig Donaldson, launched the banks apprenticeship scheme in conjunction with the London Evening Standard's "Ladder for London" campaign that has so far brought about the creation of 320 new apprenticeship positions in the past month.
Mr Donaldson himself grew up in a pit village near Sunderland during the miner's strike, about which he says: “I saw the terrible impact on families of rampant unemployment. My dad was just trying to keep his head above water.
“My mates were brilliant people with huge potential, but the school we went to had low expectations and there were no job opportunities."
American financiers headhunted Mr Donaldson to create Metro Bank two and a half years ago, during which time twelve branches have opened - with more planned in the future.
His decision to take on so many apprentices makes, he says, "good business sense".
“We have a young workforce, two thirds under 30 years old, and we are expanding fast and recruiting heavily. Young people are our lifeblood.”
“Our mantra", he told a potential apprentice, "is ‘recruit for attitude, train for skills’. If you can bring that can-do attitude to us, we can give you not just a job but an exciting career.”
“Lots of unemployed people have parents who don’t work or have never worked, and that can be a pretty difficult environment. We see apprenticeships as a chance to raise their aspirations and to show them what they can achieve. Young people are the building blocks, not just of Metro Bank, but of our economy. We are very, very excited about this.”
