There will be two temporary job centres opening in Liverpool in the next few week as Jobcentre Plus staff handle vacancies for companies such as BT Openreach and B&M. Tony McDonough reports
Jobcentre Plus in Merseyside is opening two new temporary jobcentres and says it is offering training opportunities for fill vacancies from BT Openreach.
In the next few weeks, Jobcentre Plus will open temporary facilities in Duke Street in Liverpool city centre and at Liverpool Innovation Park in Edge Lane. These will provide more face-to-face support for jobseekers as the UK comes out of lockdown.
There are a number of employment opportunities for broadband infrastructure provider BT Openreach in its civil engineering operation. Job will be available both directly and via Openreach sub-contractors. Staff at Jobcentre plus will ve able to arrange training and support for people to enable them to apply for the vacancies.
Jobcentre Plus is also handling direct recruitment for warehouse operatives at retail giant B&M and port operative roles with Stafforce. It is also upskilling jobseekers for traffic management roles. Training includes New Roads and Street Works Act 1991, traffic management and highways sector.
There are also opportunities in the care sector with linked driving lessons for key worker roles. Staff are also arranging swaps for Kickstart including placements with Liverpool Hospital and Merseyscare.
Latest data for the Liverpool city region shows that as of February 11, there were 177,250 people in Liverpool, Wirral, Knowsley, Sefton, St Helens and Halton, in receipt of Universal Credit – a rise of just under 1.9% from 174,009 in January.
Liverpool saw the biggest percentage rise in UC claimants, up 2.2% to 62,399; followed by St Helens, up 2.1% to 18,701; Knowsley, up 1.9% to 19,752; Sefton, up 1.8% to 27,817; Halton, up 1.6% to 16,659; and Wirral, up 1.4% to 31,922.
Gemma Batchelor, senior relationship manager for Jobcentre Plus Merseyside, told LBN: “The Merseyside Youth Association (MYA) Youth Hub has now gone live to provide additional support to young people looking for work.
“Young people will be able to visit the youth hub based on Hanover Street and attend their Work Coach appointments at the hub rather than a Jobcentre if they prefer. MYA will provide specialist support for young people with neurodiversity and also deliver outreach activities with BAME communities within Merseyside.
“Kickstart is going from strength to strength in Merseyside with hundreds of young people now in Kickstart jobs. However we do still need more employers to get involved and will be running sessions for employers who want to find out more about the scheme. They can email Merseyside.Kickstart.gov.uk.”
For details about Youth Hubs in Merseyside click here. For more information on current job vacancies click here. If you are an employer looking for assistance to fill vacancies click here. You can follow Jobcentre Plus Merseyside on Twitter @JCPinMerseyside