The sudden onset of Covid-19 in March this year caused an immediate major economic disruption across the region, with the sudden closure of businesses and uncertainty for many citizens.
Employers and employees were navigating a quickly changing landscape to prevent job disruption. Many of those affected are not known to local employability systems, including those working in low skilled jobs and the gig economy, and employers unprepared for cutting contracts and hours. While the Job Retention Scheme was introduced it became apparent it would not necessarily prevent on-going job losses and the need for further economic security for many.
Regional partners noticed a surge in job opportunities with sudden growth sectors, including take-away food and beverages, logistics, supermarkets and the NHS / care sector, agriculture, among others and saw a gap for a job promotion service to meet the needs of both employers and at-risk employees as well as jobseekers with an opportunity to match skills to opening opportunities.
The Covid-19 Jobs Support portal was quickly developed by Hanlon Software Solutions as a regional offer for employers still recruiting and Covid-19 impacted employees facing job losses, and launched on 3 April.
The portal gives support that is specific and clearly visible and captures the scale of the challenge as we also collect data through registration details of those affected. It offers additional links to local services across the region and manage the considerable information flow currently being generated, including welfare rights support and links to PACE activity and Business Development support for employers.
The portal was promoted via a maximum impact marketing campaign through the region. The site has now welcomed its 14,500 unique visitor with over 70,000 page views. With 305 employers promoting over 796 vacancies.
In the site’s infancy the majority of roles were within customer service in the retail and logistics sectors, but as time has progressed these vacancies have reduced and a steady increase in health and social care roles are becoming available daily. A total of 476 health and social care vacancies have been advertised which amounts to 60% of all advertised roles, confirming the need for ongoing support for this ever-growing sector.
HMRC who are relocating their service offices from multiple locations within the city region to their new purpose-reconfigured facilities welcomed the introduction of the Covid-19 Jobs Support site to support their mass recruitment drive. They have since received 900 job applications from across the travel to work area.
A local care employer said:
“Following advertising on wwwc19jobs.org, we were overwhelmed by applications received in March and April and had to place a hold on recruitment for all of May. It was not a position I ever expected to find us in I can tell you!”
Manager, Odeon Cinema said when approached by the employer engagement team:
“During such unprecedented times, reaching out to others has never been more crucial, as an employer but also in society. Although we do have an employee assistance programme within our company, to know that there are options for my team is beneficial to their wellbeing. I feel much better knowing there is support there for them through this portal, whatever happens during these uncertain times”
The site has also been well received by jobseekers across the regions, one job seeker from the Scottish Borders who registered with Covid-19 Jobs Support has secured a contract with NHS Borders. Another jobseeker in Fife has secured a role with Amazon.
Following the launch of Covid-19 Jobs Support, the Integrated Employer Engagement team has actively engaged with a number of other Scottish local authorities through the Scottish Local Authorities Economic Development Group (SLAED) to promote the software and functionality of the site and to date three other local authorities are rolling out this product within their areas, with a further eight in discussions with the developer Hanlon.
For more information please contact c19jobs@capitalcitypartnership.org
