RS Components has become a member of ‘The 5% Club’, an important initiative where employer members strive to achieve 5% of their workforce in ‘earn and learn’ positions. Such positions include sponsored students, apprenticeships, and graduates on formalised training schemes, with the target of 5% being attained within five years of joining the club. Membership of the club both complements and strengthens the extensive efforts of the company in fulfilling new STEM-based work and educational opportunities for young people.
Created in 2013 as an answer to high youth unemployment and a shortage of skills in the workplace, ‘The 5% Club’ is supported by the UK Government’s Apprenticeship Levy and is a dynamic group of employer members based in the UK. The initiative includes a wide range of organisations and companies that work across many different markets and industrial sectors, which includes the Ministry of Defence, Network Rail, Rolls-Royce and a broad selection of SMEs across the UK.
“Joining ‘The 5% Club’ is a further reinforcement of our long-term strategy to support STEM-based learning and help inspire and bring through the next generation of engineers, maintenance and IT professionals, and skilled workers in general,” said Mike England, president EMEA at RS. “We are already putting plans in place and challenging ourselves to meet the target of having 5% of UK employees in ‘earn and learn’ positions by the end of 2019, which would be well within two years of joining this initiative.”
