PHX chosen to help Lancashire unemployed get back to work

A leading Lancashire training provider has been contracted to help people in Lancashire get back to work (@phxtraining).

PHX Training, which has offices in Blackpool, Preston and Morecambe, has been selected by PeoplePlus to deliver a range of qualifications to help fill job vacancies across the county.

The Skills Support for the Unemployment contract will involve PHX Training working with Lancashire Local Enterprise Partnership to identify job vacancies that are unfilled and develop a training plan for people currently claiming job seeking benefits to complete qualifications and fill the roles.

The initiative is funded by the European Social Fund and the support is available to all Lancashire businesses struggling to find relevant employees, as well as anybody unemployed over the age of 16.

Sectors that will be focused on include care workers, hospitality and visitor economy jobs, construction workers and IT and digital jobs.

Job vacancies across the country are at an all-time high time following the pandemic, with the Office for National Statistics reporting over one million job vacancies currently need filling, the highest level since records began. However, job claimant figures in Lancashire suggest around 50,000 people in the county are still unemployed, almost 15,000 higher than before the start of the pandemic.

Fixing the vacancies problem is an issue of changing people’s skills, according to PHX Training’s Head of Employment and Training, Julie Torrance.

Julie said:

“The issue isn’t that there aren’t enough people to fill the vacancies but that they need to be reskilled before they can start a career in a different sector. People can’t move from being a security guard at a concert to working on a construction site without some basic qualifications.

“Our work with PeoplePlus and Lancashire Local Enterprise Partnership will allow us to identify businesses which are struggling to hire and create a plan to run training courses relevant to those jobs so people can gain the qualifications needed to become employable in that sector.

“Once we start to help people into those job roles, we can then also build a training plan for them to continue to upskill and learn on the job by starting apprenticeships, traineeships or further education so that they can make a career of their new role.”

PHX Training has training centres in Barrow, Carlisle, Morecambe, Preston and Blackpool to help people complete training courses and apprenticeships to help them back into work.

PHX Training delivers government-backed initiatives including adult skills – Maths, English and vocational courses, NEET (not in education, employment or training), employability contracts and apprenticeships.