Nissan’s Sunderland plant in north-east England has requested a further 100 trainees be recruited onto a unique apprenticeship scheme, to support production of a new model.

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Last September, training provider Assa enrolled 100 trainees onto its ‘Manufacturing Trainee Scheme’ to prepare for Nissan’s launch of the ‘Tone’ mini-MPV, scheduled for January next year.


Now, another 100 recruits will be enrolled onto the scheme to support production of a car based on the 4×4 Qashqai concept, which will be built in Sunderland from December 2006.


Trainees will be employed by Assa for the first 14 months of the 20-month programme. It is expected that they will transfer to a permanent Nissan contract as trainee manufacturing staff for the final six months of the scheme, after which they will become manufacturing staff based in the plant’s trim & chassis, body and paint shops.


Assa is looking to enrol 17-23 year-olds with at least 4 GCSEs (grade D or above, including maths and English) onto the scheme, which starts in September.

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Nissan Motor Manufacturing (UK) Ltd managing director, Colin Dodge, said: “The scheme has been specially designed to support the plant’s long term production plans, in particular the introduction of a new mini-MPV in January and a car based on the Qashqai in December 2006.


“Including the trainees, we anticipate we will need to recruit around 400 additional staff to work on the two new models. This is based on a combined annual volume of around 230,000 units, which could go up or down depending on how well the European market is performing.”


The scheme has been developed jointly between Nissan and Gateshead College, where trainees will spend time on block release working towards a range of NVQ qualifications.


The rest of their time will be spent on work placement in NMUK’s production shops where they will develop the manufacturing skills needed to meet the plant’s high productivity targets.