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Jobs in culture and sport pass the 6000 mark, Bradshaw announces
Progress towards the creation of 10,000 new jobs for young people in the cultural and sports sectors is now well past the half way mark, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport Ben Bradshaw announced today.
Nine months after the Government first announced plans to fund employment opportunities for young people who might otherwise be struggling to find work, DCMS has secured funding for more than 6,500 posts in the sports and cultural sectors.
A diverse range of projects have received funding in recent months, including: sports coaches and leisure centre workers; apprentices in theatres; internships with arts organisations; and support roles in museums and galleries.
Visiting Future Jobs Fund recruits in Leicester today, Ben Bradshaw said:
“Jobs in the cultural and sports sectors can be hard to come by. It’s often the case that the supply of potential employees outstrips demand, so it can be particularly hard for young people with little experience who are keen to take their first steps into the world of work.
“Today I have met some young people who are very excited about their new jobs, but these unique opportunities would not have been possible without the Future Jobs Fund.
“We started with a target of between five and ten thousand new jobs in our sectors, and I am confident we will end up with a figure far higher than that.”
Examples of successful bids include:
•Thirty new staff starting at Southbank Centre in March, involved in a wide range of activities from welcoming visitors to behind the scenes support. Southbank Centre was one of the first organisations to bid for jobs through the Future Jobs Fund, in collaboration with youth organisation SE1 United and New Deal of the Mind, a coalition that aims to help boost the UK economy by developing jobs in the creative industries.
•Fifty six jobs working for a disability-led theatre group in Essex. Theatre Resource, based in Ongar, is an arts organisation specialising in disability arts and social inclusion. Also co-ordinated by New Deal of the Mind, jobs include community craft workers, marketing assistants and arts programme workers.
•Two hundred jobs across the West Midlands, co-ordinated by the Skills Partnership and making a major contribution towards the region’s Olympics legacy. Working as School Physical Activity Co-ordinators in Birmingham, Walsall, Sandwell, Solihull and Dudley, these jobs involve working alongside teaching staff engaging young people in physical activities in breakfast, lunch and after school clubs.
The Future Jobs Fund (FJF) is a Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) initiative that aims to create 170,000 new jobs for young people, 10,000 of which will be from DCMS sectors. Five thousand of these will be in the cultural sector and 5,000 in the sports sector.
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