26 January 2012
The States of Jersey Back to Work team is calling on Island employers to work with them to get job-seekers working.
In the last month the team has announced its success in developing a working partnership with JT Global to make the most of the 100 job opportunities created by the company’s Gigabit Jersey Project and has been working closely with other industries, including hospitality, to reduce the number of unemployed Islanders.
The cross-departmental team, led by Social Security, was set up in late 2011 with the task of finding both long and short term ways to reduce the number of Islanders who are unemployed. From February, the team, which includes representatives from Economic Development, Education, Sport and Culture and Social Security, will join forces in offices in the Social Security Department.
Social Security Minister Senator Francis Le Gresley said that the team had been working on a number of initiatives, including the expansion of existing successful schemes, but that 1 of the most important aspects of their work had been to increase consultation with employers to make sure that any strategies were tailored to meet demand in the market place.
“We need to know what it is that employers want, what levels they are likely to recruit at in the coming year and what training and incentives they feel would be most effective in achieving the common goal of getting locally qualified individuals into jobs.”
“The Back to Work team brings together the knowledge and contacts of several different departments and will allow us to align training opportunities with industry expectations. The team would like to hear from employers who may have vacancies coming up in the next few months, about the skills needed for those posts and the possibility of finding suitable candidates from the Island’s job-seekers. We are also keen to gather the opinions of industry leaders on the issues and challenges presented by Jersey’s unemployment figures,” said Senator Le Gresley.
Chief Minister Senator Ian Gorst said “Jersey is facing unprecedented levels of unemployment and we are preparing ourselves for the potential that it will continue to rise during the course of the year. We will do all we can to tackle that by listening to the needs of various industries and providing appropriate support for job-seekers.”
You can contact the Back to Work team by email from Tuesday 31 January.
Email the Back to Work team
gov.je