Barclays has announced that more than 100 training places have been made available to young people in its Essex banks.

The announcement includes a pledge to provide 300,000 training hours to young people not currently in education, employment or training.

Ashok Vaswani, chief executive of Barclays Retail and Business Banking, said: “Our training programme in Essex has been developed as part of Barclays commitment to tacking youth unemployment and helping one million young people who are out of work.”

The Barclays traineeships will combine a placement at a Barclays branch, contact or operations centre with skills tutoring at a training centre. combined with a placement.

Mr Vaswani said: “It is hoped at least half of the candidates will then progress to interview for Barclays apprenticeships and the opportunity to secure permanent employment.”

The Barclays traineeship programme will see young people experience a variety of roles from in branch, telephony, operations to within the corporate and investment arms of the bank.

Matthew Hancock, minister for skills and enterprise, welcomed the new traineeship initiative. He said: “The new Barclays programme is strongly supportive of the Government’s determination to give everyone the best possible chance to reach their potential, to keep youth unemployment on its downward trajectory”