WITH more than 4,000 people in Swindon out of work, 1,000 new benefit claims every month and an average waiting time of more than 15 weeks to secure a job, finding employment looks like a daunting prospect... but help is at hand to get Swindon working.

Figures released last week show that 4,621 people are claiming Jobseekers’ Allowance inthe town, but that is down more than 100 on last year, and the number of people claiming for more than six months is down 175 on last year’s figures.

Of those claiming Jobseekers’ Allowance, 1,225 are aged between aged between 18 and 24, which is up on the national average but down again on last year by nearly 200.

Since the turn of the year, more than 3,000 jobs have been lost in Swindon, leaving a black hole in the jobs market with big companies such as Honda making large scale cut backs.

But with the Job Centre working alongside the colleges, national apprenticeship schemes and some of the biggest businesses in the town, the future is looking brighter for Swindon, which has traditonally been one of the first towns in the country to bounce back after recession.

Jill Annal, partnerships manager with Job Centre Plus, is one of those helping people back into employment. She says despite the number of job losses in the past six months, the jobs market has shown that it can cope.

She said: “I have looked at three sets of information: the total number. which is down on month and down on year as well; the long term figure, which is also down on year; and youth unemployment, which is also down on month and down on year. That tells us, trend wise, that there is an improving situation with people claiming job allowance, and that’s despite the news about the Honda redundancies and the impact of job losses in the supply chain – we haven’t seen that reflected in the unemployment figures.

“The numbers look like they are moving down really slowly, but as an organisation we take somewhere between 800 and 1,000 new claims for Jobseekers’ Allowance a month, and our register is about 4,500 in Swindon. It is not a static number of people, it is a constant movement, so we take about 1,000 claims and about 1,100 people leave us on a monthly basis.

“That also demonstrates to us a healthy labour market, with lots of job opportunities coming up so people move off into work.

“The overall trend is down and that is despite welfare reforms that are moving more people on to Jobseekers’ Allowance, so I think that is good news for Swindon.”

The Job Centre says Swindon has a broad labour market, with around 30 per cent of the advertised vacancies on their site, but people are now relying on the internet and specialist agencies to find work.

The average time people spend on Jobseekers’ Allowance in Swindon is 15-and-a-half weeks, which is lower than the Thames Valley area, which stands at nearly 17 weeks.

When people go to the Job Centre they are offered various opportunities to help them back into work, with access to courses that help them prepare a CV and improve interview techniques.

The Job Centre has also worked with colleges, work programme providers, national apprenticeship and with schemes such as Plan 500 to join up the offer they make to employers.

They are also working with Forward Swindon so when new businesses come to the town, they can put together recruitment packages to ensure local people are given a chance.

“We invest a huge amount of money in activities that people can undertake from day one of unemployment,” Jill said.

“We can stop people getting to us in the first place by responding to large scale redundancies like we have done for Honda, bringing support in while people have still got a job and stemming the tide so that people don’t have to sign on.

“The first message I would give to people is don’t lose heart because there are job opportunities out there and we see people going into work on a daily basis.”

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