I AM pleased to say that we have recently launched a new campaign for ‘Creating our Future Workforce’ alongside Worcestershire County Council.

The campaign aims to tackle the county’s skills gap by enabling businesses to work together with local educational establishments, helping to shape Worcestershire’s skilled workforce of the future.

Businesses of all sizes in Worcestershire can get involved with ‘Creating our Future Workforce’ through a variety of pathways. These include for example; attending assembly talks at schools, supporting young people with mock interviews and CV workshops, employing a young person as an apprentice, becoming an enterprise advisor and offering a young person a work experience or internship opportunity.

There are many reasons for your business to add your support to this campaign. The campaign enables your company to promote apprenticeship programmes and work experience opportunities directly to local students, it helps young people to prepare for the world of work and allows schools to provide more accurate guidance on your industry sector’s career pathway and requirements.

All businesses that sign up to the campaign will be featured at next year’s Worcestershire Skills Show, where it will be unveiled how local business commitment is helping to improve career opportunities for young people across the county.

The campaign was launched at our Worcestershire LEP Annual Conference as part of a skills panel which discussed the challenges that businesses face in terms of recruiting staff. The panel also highlighted what is being done to support young people to develop the skills they need for their ideal career.I am delighted that over 400 businesses were in attendance at the Worcestershire LEP Conference to witness the launch of the program to tackle the skills shortage that many businesses are facing across the county. Thank you to all of the companies that were able to attend. To get involved with ‘Creating our Future Workforce’, email the team on CEC@Worcestershire.gov.uk