New City Employment and Skills Plan aims for job creation

There was a packed conference room recently at the American Express Community Stadium for the launch of the City Employment & Skills Plan 2011-2014.

City College Brighton and HovePrincipal Phil Frier explained how the City Employment and Skills Steering Group which he chairs will concentrate on three areas of potential job creation – Apprenticeships, the development of an Eco-tech business park to exploit and support emerging environmental industries and also attracting higher value employment to the city.

The steering group, established by Brighton & Hove City Council, includes key personnel from the Council’s main strategic partners in the public, private and community and voluntary sectors including representatives from both Brighton and Sussex Universities, Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club, Jobcentre Plus, ICP Recruitment Group and Brighton & Hove Economic Partnership.

'I want this to be a dynamic and responsive plan for the City which becomes a living document as we now develop the actions which will be required to achieve its overall objectives', said Mr. Frier.

'I believe that it’s a great time to be living and working in Brighton and Hove. I know of few other cities in the UK where so many key people are working together in close partnerships to improve city life for all of our communities, and I am really looking forward to chairing the City Employment and Skills Group as we build the action framework required to deliver this plan.'

The plan makes it clear that Brighton & Hove has to create just over 6,000 jobs in the next two years if it wants to maintain its current 71.6% employment rate which is actually lower that the rate in 2004 which stood at just under 74%. To get back to the 2004 rate it will have to create 9,400 jobs in the same period.

Although the current employment rate is quite low compared to the city’s neighbours and the South East average, it includes some 33,000 students who are in full time education. The rate compares favourably to other university towns but the backward slide from 2004 is no cause for complacency.

The plan also outlines how Brighton & Hove has a good track record of private sector job creation with over 21,000 jobs being created between 1998 and 2008 although nearly 70% were created in the first three years and over half were part time.

Many of the additional jobs may be outside the city - a quarter of the workforce already leave every day to work in other places and some 28,000 people commute in to work from surrounding locations. This places considerable strain on the transport infrastructure, especially the trains which accommodate over 19 million passenger journeys every year from Brighton’s eight stations.

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