BITA initiative to attract new blood

An initiative to attract new blood into the forklift truck market, through better opportunities and apprenticeships, was announced at the recent BITA (British Industrial Truck Association) AGM.

BITA has committed to fund an Industry Apprentice Manager to work with colleges and other trade associations to attract applicants to apprenticeship schemes. The announcement comes at a time when the economic forecast for the industry, presented at the AGM by Oxford Economics, is strong, but the age profile of the engineering sector continues to increase.

BITA Board member Bill Goodwin, sales director at Jungheinrich UK, is heading the recruitment initiative - the Materials Handling Equipment Apprenticeship Scheme. He says: "We are committed to working with schools, colleges and industry to improve the opportunities available.

Our objective is to provide support and a point of contact between apprentices and operating companies.

"Excellent resources are already available in the form of training courses for MHE apprenticeships, however, the principal issue for our industry is take-up rates.We need to see significant numbers joining our sector to replace retiring employees if we want to reverse our current ageing profile."