VIDEO: Raymond Blanc backs Boris Johnson’s apprenticeship drive

Luke Jacobs Wednesday, March 6, 2013
12:22 PM

Michelin starred chef Raymond Blanc has pleaded with fellow business owners to follow his lead and take on more apprentices.

Raymond Blanc with a handful of his apprentices. They will work at Brasserie Blanc for a year

The restaurateur and TV personality is fully behind Boris Johnson’s pledge to increase the number of young people joining the scheme by 250,000 by 2016.

Speaking at his Threadneedle Street branch of Brasserie Blanc, alongside a handful of the 20 youngsters he has taken on this year at the chain across the country, Mr Blanc compared the food and hospitality sector to a “training ground” for young jobseekers.

He said: “I think apprenticeships are so important because we need them desperately, we need to have home grown talent.

“We need to make the industry even more responsible, to be a real training ground, to grow these young people so they can be confident and strong to create more jobs.”

Boris Johnson and Raymond Blanc with his young apprentices

Mr Blanc’s apprentices, aged between 16 and 19, will be paired with a mentor and will also be assessed by the De Vere Training Academy on a monthly basis.

The programme will be split into modules, some of which are based around NVQs. Each apprentice will get a certificate on completion.

Mr Johnson insisted his apprenticeship programme was one of the reasons why he believed London’s joblessness figures remained relatively low.

He told London 24: “We want to expand it, I believe in it passionately.

“I think it is one of the reasons why the jobs figures remain so low in London. In spite of all the difficulties the economy has been going through we have been keeping people in work and that’s so much better than the recession I remember in my youth.

“It’s so much better to have a system we you really really work at finding young people the opportunities that they need.