Telford Job Box

Telford & Wrekin Council’s Job Box welcomed over 4,000 local people to their jobs fair and skills festival this week.

On Wednesday 18 March, the Partnership for Jobs fair returned to The International Centre, Telford for the second year.

The jobs fair highlighted employment and training opportunities available in the borough.

Yesterday (Thursday 19 March), the Partnership for Careers skills festival opened its doors to local young people looking to find out about future career paths in Telford and Wrekin.

Over 1,000 local school pupils attended Thursday’s event and took part in a range of interactive activities intended to give a flavour of the various careers on offer.

The event was attended by local and national employers from a range of sectors including engineering, retail, hospitality, manufacturing, IT and business.

Over the two days, more than 4,000 stepped into The International Centre in Telford to find out about training, apprenticeship and jobs.

At the beginning of 2014, the Council launched The Job Box to pull together a range of education, training and employment support and its services have guided many local people into employment and new life phases.

The Council has invested £1.3m in a two year programme which is working to reducing high youth unemployment levels in the borough.

As a result of the measures taken by the Council as a part of the Job Box, youth unemployment in Telford and Wrekin has fallen by about 50 per cent in the last year.

Councillor Shaun Davies, Telford & Wrekin Council’s cabinet member for Employment and Skills, said: “We’re really pleased by the number of people who came to our jobs fair and skills festival this week.

"It just shows that people do want to find work in the borough and that they are prepared to do something about it.

"Our Job Box service offers help and support to those looking for job, training and apprenticeship opportunities and the two events this week highlight the work that our Job Box team do throughout the year.

"We introduced the skills festival this year to meet the needs of our local residents based on feedback from last year’s event.

"Last year’s jobs fair attracted a lot of school pupils and their parents and we wanted to ensure that this year, they had an event that was geared more to the needs of our young people."