Announcement comes during Careers@HiltonLive which will see over 320 careers events across Europe
Hilton Worldwide today announced the creation of up to 300 work placement opportunities a year at its hotels across the UK, for school pupils to gain valuable skills and experience in the world of work. The news comes during the company?s biggest ever Europe wide careers campaign, Careers@HiltonLive, which will see almost 200 Hilton Worldwide hotels hosting over 320 careers events for an estimated 20,000 young people.
The newly launched placements will be for one to two weeks work experience and will offer young people aged between 14 and 18 years old a realistic?view of the world of work and the routes into it through a structured programme of activities. The scheme will give young people the chance to learn about different areas of the business and, more generally, get an understanding of the employability and interpersonal skills that are important for any career.
Hilton Worldwide unveiled the scheme at The Big Conversation for Hospitality jobs event, held at Hilton Liverpool, where young people who have already taken part in work experience placements told delegates how it had transformed their lives.
The company is also calling on other businesses to offer similar opportunities, to help the so-called ?lost generation? gain the vital skills needed to make the transition from school to the work place.? More than one in five 16 to 24 year-olds are out of work, official figures show, with research showing a lack of access to work skills and experience is a major barrier to employment for many young people.
Ben Bengougam, vice president of HR for Europe, Middle East and Africa, Hilton Worldwide, said, ?Today, youth unemployment is one of the greatest challenges facing our labour market, and only by adopting an holistic approach can we hope to effectively tackle its corrosive effects. For this reason, our ambition has been to create opportunities for young people at every stage of their development, and now with the launch of our new national, high-quality work experience scheme, together with our existing apprenticeship programme, graduate scheme and youth employment career options, we have reached this important milestone.
?As well as structured programmes for young people, it is vital that we encourage greater engagement between businesses and young people through the provision of careers information. We are currently in the middle of one of our biggest ever careers events which will see over 320 events across Europe where more than 20,000 young people will have the chance to get insights into a range of careers, understand the skills recruiters are looking for and, most important of all, enable them to make a connection with someone in a career they may not have thought about.?
Heather Scott, Head of Bruntcliffe School in Morley, who formed part of the advisory group in the creation of the new scheme, said, ?I?m delighted that Hilton Worldwide has launched this initiative, I wish that more companies would be as pro-active in their approach to working with schools. Our students find work experience extremely valuable and Hilton Worldwide has done an impressive job in putting together a specially structured programme for pupils to get the most out of their placements.?
The company will also be rolling out the programme to make it available to young people who have already left school and are in employment, but may be considering a new career, as well as those who have left school but are not in education, employment or training (Neet), which is an estimated 153,000 of 16 to 18 year olds
Careers@HiltonLive follows the launch earlier this year of a white paper by Hilton Worldwide and the International Youth Foundation which highlights solutions to youth joblessness that the global hospitality sector is uniquely positioned to provide. Titled Creating Opportunities for Youth in Hospitality, it found that the travel and tourism sector, which employs 255 million people globally, is expected to generate 73 million new jobs by 2022 and therefore provides an important solution to the issues being faced by young people today.
Hilton Worldwide alone is adding over 135 hotels in the coming years to its existing portfolio of 240 properties across Europe, and the range of jobs, training and skills the company has to offer is growing with its expansion.
For further information about the new work experience programme and any of the Careers@HiltonLive events visit www.facebook.com/hiltoncareers. For information on job vacancies with Hilton Worldwide visit www.hiltonworldwide.com/careers.