A Newport digital marketing business has expanded its operations and given two local young people full-time jobs after signing up to the Welsh Government’s flagship youth employment programme – Jobs Growth Wales.

Branching Out Europe, a sales and digital marketing business based in Beechwood House in Newport, works with a range of clients across IT, the telecommunications sector and manufacturing.

The company has since opened up two further posts for new roles through Jobs Growth Wales which will expand the team from seven to nine members of staff.

Delyth Jones founded Branching Out Europe in 2003.

She said: “Jobs Growth Wales has certainly been an excellent opportunity for us and has given us the chance to grow more rapidly than we would have done by ourselves. So far we have employed two people full-time who have both become valuable members of the business. I’d give Jobs Growth Wales a big thumbs-up and would definitely recommend the programme to others.”

The Jobs Growth Wales programme, which is backed by the European Social Fund, is designed to create 12,000 job opportunities over three years for unemployed work-ready 16-24 year-olds, helping to reimburse their wages for six months.

Now entering its third year, the flagship youth employment programme has already created more than 15,000 job opportunities across Wales, with nearly 12,000 young people filling those jobs.

Jobs Growth Wales is to be extended for a fourth year. This means that extra job opportunities for unemployed 16-24 year olds will be created in 2015/16.

Eighty-two per cent of young people in the private sector have gone on to sustained employment, including apprenticeships, and further learning. A boom in young entrepreneurs who have benefitted from a £6,000 bursary as part of the programme has led to the creation of 345 new businesses.

One of the company’s recruits through Jobs Growth Wales is 25-year-old Stephen Tamlin, who joined as a marketing executive and two years on has progressed to heading up the agency’s digital marketing arm.

He said: “ I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to progress as much as I have done. Jobs Growth Wales has definitely helped me into finding a brilliant job within a company that will take me onto a rewarding career. I’m here to stay and I’m pleased to have been given real responsibility in growing the business.”