Project Manager set to Develop the Young Workforce

Following the announcement of a four year project to help bridge the gap between education and industry earlier last month, the Board of ‘Developing the Young Workforce in Moray’ have appointed their team to implement the strategy. The strategy and targets, agreed with Scottish Government, will enable young people, their parents and their teachers to understand the local labour market and opportunities and progression paths that are available to them. The project will also see sustainable long term partnerships being formed between local businesses and schools/colleges. This improved two-way relationship will see significant improvements in the amount of young people who are recruited locally and increased number of young people taking a modern apprenticeship. Steve Bremner has been appointed as Project Manager for DYW Moray and begins at the start of April. He says: "I am delighted to be joining to the Moray Chamber to help establish and deliver the “Developing the young workforce” strategy here in Moray. Coming from a recruitment background, not just as an employee but as a former business owner I recognise the challenges that both businesses and young job seekers face. I'm looking forward to engaging with the public, private and third sectors to help build sustainable interconnected relationships that will not only benefit our developing young workforce, they will also help our business community to ensure they have appropriately skilled staff to facilitate their growth ambitions." Steve will be joined by Support Assistant, Julie Cameron who will start at the beginning of May. The DYW Moray Board will be officially launching the project at an event at the Alexander Graham Bell Centre, Moray College UHI on Tuesday 10^th May; further details will be out in due course. Sarah Medcraf, Chief Executive of Moray Chamber of Commerce and Project Director of DYW advised “We have been working on this application with the government over the last year, so to finally have the staff and resources to push it forward makes this a very exciting time. We have an enthusiastic Board made up from mainly private sector local businesses and to have their support from the start is very encouraging.” Developing the Young Workforce groups have been set up all over the country, with the support of the Scottish Government, in response to Sir Ian Woods report Developing Scotland’s Young Workforce. Moray businesses are urged to get involved to retain talent in the area and develop young people with the relevant skills for their business.