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After last week’s GCSE results, McDonald’s has been drawing attention to the benefits of work-based qualifications for young people in the UK.

McDonald’s is one of the biggest UK employers of people under the age of 26, providing jobs for an estimated 70,000 young people in the 16-25 year bracket. Almost 3 in 4 of their part time staff are studying in some form of education - and their staff have completed over 50,000 qualifications in the last eight years.

The company is always keen to get eager young people into their fold in the UK, and McDonald’s encourages them to study whilst they are gaining work experience with a leading employer.

Encouraging young people not to over-obsess about their GCSE results last week, McDonald’s said that there are now more choices available to young people than ever before.

Jez Langhorn, the Senior Vice President and Chief People Officer at McDonald’s UK, said: “More and more employers like McDonald’s are offering work-based learning programmes, so young people no longer need to make a straight choice between employment and education.”

“Work-based qualifications such as apprenticeships are a great way to gain on-the-job experience; earning as you learn while building broader skills that are vital to long-term career success: skills like communication, teamwork and time management,” said Mr Langhorn.

As we reported back in June, McDonald’s recently announced plans to recruit over 5,500 new young people in the next three years, and 19 in every 20 current restaurant managers at the fast food giant started out in entry level positions by taking up crew member jobs at McDonald’s.

Empathising with young people who may not have performed as well as they expected when they collected their GCSE results last week, McDonald’s Mr Langhorn warned against despondency and pointed to the range of opportunities that still lay ahead for school leavers:

“It can be a daunting time, and we must remember that whilst the employment market is opening up and more places in further and higher education are becoming available, these remain tough times for young people,” said McDonald’s Chief People Officer.

“In short, work-based qualifications help people progress at work and beyond, and enable employers like us develop the range of skills we need in our people,” concluded Mr Langhorn.

We have lots of information the e4s website about entry level positions such as apprenticeships and school leaver programmes - and it’s a section which we are constantly adding to and improving. We already have many location-specific pages for these sort of vacancies (eg. Entry Level Jobs In London and Apprenticeships in Manchester) and we’re working on adding tons more of these tailored pages in the coming weeks. Watch this space...