Showing its commitment to staff training, car giant Rolls-Royce has announced that it will be taking on 50 additional apprentices on top of the 170 it had pencilled in to recruit.

The announcement was made yesterday (January 8th) to tie in with Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s visit to the company’s Derby factory.

Rolls-Royce has confirmed that the government will be funding the training costs of the additional apprentices as part of its pledge to invest some £140 million in apprenticeships next year.

Commenting on the investment in training, Sir John Rose, chief executive of Rolls-Royce, said: “We are proud of our apprentice scheme which we believe makes a strong contribution to the competitiveness of our workforce and to that of the wider economy.”

He said that the company attaches a priority to learning and skills. Rolls-Royce has been running its apprentice programme for over 50 years.