SEAT has begun the training course for the first employees to join the workforce for production of the new Audi Q3. To date, 150 of the 1,200 people to be trained by SEAT over the forthcoming weeks –from whom the company will select the 700 to be hired – are already studying the first course module at SEAT’s Training School.
In the wake of the agreement signed with the Catalan government (Generalitat) on March 16th, the Catalan Labour Service (SOC) has formally processed 11,000 requests from people interested in working at SEAT, and whose profile fits the job offer requirements (unemployed, having done a Middle to Further training course in industrial specialities or similar training).
- First 150 trainees already at Training School
- SEAT to begin hiring workers at end of May
The SOC is now evaluating and assessing candidate applications via skills and manual tests as well as a personal interview, so as to choose the 1,200 who will follow the SEAT-designed training course. The first successful candidates are already doing the course, and they will be joined by others as applications are processed by the SOC.
The training program reflects SEAT’s needs for production of the Audi Q3. The course comprises 176 hours of theoretical and practical training at SEAT’s Training School located at the Zona Franca and the Martorell plant. The first workers to successfully get through the training course are scheduled to join the company at the end of May.
Production of the Audi Q3 in Martorell will enable SEAT to offer 1,500 jobs, 700 of them newly-created. Both Audi and SEAT have invested 300 million euros in this project that will contribute to achieving company’s objective of running the Martorell plant at full capacity.
SEAT is the only company in its sector with the full-range capacity to design, develop, manufacture and market cars in Spain. A member of the Volkswagen Group, the multinational has its headquarters in Martorell (Barcelona), exporting approximately 75% of its production to 72 countries. SEAT is market leader in Spain, and in 2010 reached a trade volume amounting to 4.7 billion euros, with total sales of 339,500 vehicles.
SEAT Group employs 13,000 professionals at its three production centers in Barcelona – Zona Franca, El Prat de Llobregat and Martorell, where it manufactures the highly successful Ibiza and Leon, amongst other models. The Volkswagen Group production facility at Palmela in Portugal supplies the SEAT Alhambra.
The Spanish multinational also has a Centre of Excellence or ‘knowledge hub’, bringing together more than 900 engineers whose remit is to be the driving force behind innovation for the number one industrial investor in R&D+i in Spain. In line with its declared commitment to environmental protection, SEAT undertakes and bases its core activity on criteria of sustainability, namely reduction of CO2 emissions, energy efficiency, as well as recycling and re-use of resources.
