Partner Article

Minister launches employment partnership in Middlesbrough

Stephen Timms, Department for Work and Pensions Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform, visited Teesside this week to launch a joint initiative with a local employer.

The Minister met representatives from SembCorp Utilities and other companies from the North East Process Industries Cluster (NEPIC) as they signed up to the government’s Local Employment Partnership (LEP) programme. Companies involved in the scheme pledge jobs for the long-term unemployed and those at a disadvantage in the jobs market - such as lone parents and people with a disability or health condition wanting to return to work.

SembCorp Utilities are taking the lead role with this initiative, along with other NEPIC companies, giving a number of their vacancies to people on benefits in exchange for help with recruitment from Jobcentre Plus. To get these people ready for work Jobcentre Plus will arrange training schemes, giving them the necessary skills and experience so they can go on to compete for the jobs.

Stephen Timms said: “Through Local Employment Partnerships like this one in the NEPIC cluster of companies we aim to support an additional 6,000 people in the North East off benefits and into work by March 2009. “It is a question of supporting people to overcome their barriers to work and giving them the opportunity to prepare themselves for specific opportunities.”

George Ritchie of SembCorp Utilities said: “We in industry must take the initiative to solve our skills gap problems as there is a shortage of new entrants into our industry through traditional routes, so we must innovate and explore other options, of which this is one of them. “Given this untapped resource on our doorstep we must give disadvantaged, unemployed people in our own region the opportunity of sustained employment and the continued development of their skills in our industry. This demonstrates the commitment of the multi-national companies, operating in our area, to the local community.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .