Norway: Keen Interest in Statoil Apprenticeships

Statoil received 400 more applications compared with last year and the company is taking on 181 new apprentices, compared with 168 last year.

“With apprentices we are building future competencies, not just for us, but for society at large. Statoil is an attractive workplace for apprentices and the young people we are taking on are very capable,” says Else Sørstrønen Amundsen, responsible for recruitment and head of Statoil’s apprenticeship team in Bergen.

Some 68 of the new apprentices will be working offshore, while the others have obtained positions in the company’s sites on land.

“It is especially pleasing to note that we have got more applicants from Northern Norway than previously, and have boosted our intake from this part of the country from last year’s 24 to 51 this year. We recruit from the entire country and it is therefore good to see Northern Norway so well represented this year,” says Amundsen.

The new apprentices met in Bergen yesterday, Thursday 2 September, and the first group will be starting work in their new today. Those who will be working offshore will attend a safety course before they start work; they will also take the relevant courses before joining their shifts on 15 September.

Most of the apprentices will undergo a two years’ apprenticeship in Statoil, apart from those taking their certificate within automation where the apprenticeship lasts eighteen months, and those learning electrical trades, where there is a two-and-a-half-year apprenticeship.

“We are taking on more apprentices than Statoil needs so that greater numbers of young people have the opportunity of gaining a certificate. We also place great emphasis on giving apprentices a good basis for learning so that they can obtain a solid, top quality certificate when they qualify,” says Amundsen.

The intake of apprentices is an excellent way of recruiting skilled workers to Statoil.

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Source: Statoil, September 3, 2010.