Commissioned by the British Council
This project (commissioned between 2009-2013), investigated the interaction between employers and job seekers in the recruitment and selection process, (The Brochure). The research found that interventions from local government, employers' groups and trade unions had achieved very limited impact and identified a number of failings both on the supply side and the demand side of the local labour market and set out a series of interventions to address these failings. British Council funding was used to develop a set of development programmes for job seekers, a programme of support for employers and briefings for Trade Unions, NGOs and policy makers (British Council report).
Activities included delivering development workshops to unemployed job seekers in the most disadvantaged areas, seeking to equip participants with job search, employability and entrepreneurial skills and enabling the job seekers to more effectively align themselves with the needs of employers. The development workshops started in 2009, and in the four years since, over 3,000 unemployed people have graduated from these workshops. An independent evaluation found that over 80% of participants had progressed within 3 months either to employment, officially accredited training or had started their own business enterprise. (Independent evaluation - summary report)