Jobs in Wigan's hospitality sector boom thanks to new eateries

Monthly statistics released by Jobcentre Plus and the Department for Work and Pensions show that huge new restaurant openings such as Primrose Farm, and more recently Albert’s

Standish, have led to hundreds of jobs being created across the borough.

Primrose Farm, a Green King venture, worked with the Jobcentre Plus to recruit some 116 staff, and have retained all but four of these recruits since opening. And plans are already in motion to create even more jobs at the Queen Pit Road restaurant.

More than 100 jobs were also created this month with the highly anticipated opening of Albert’s at Standish.

A spokesman for the Wigan Jobcentre Plus said: “We are working with our partners to deliver pre-employment courses to improve JCP customers’ chances of securing employment with local employers.

“Currently we are working with: The Remit Group to deliver a course for the hospitality sector, Mantra Training to deliver a course in warehousing, Diamond Buses for drivers and are currently promoting the Disability Confident Scheme to local employers to help them in attracting and retaining valued disabled employees.”

The Jobcentre Plus is also working with school leavers over the summer to help them in preparing to apply for work.

The total unemployment rate for Wigan for the month was 7642, rising three per cent from the month prior, but has dropped more than 21 per cent over the last five years.

On the national scale, wages overtook inflation for the 16th month in a row, with record numbers of 32.7m people in work.

New figures also show the level of youth unemployment in the UK has nearly halved since 2010, falling by 47 per cent and sitting at its lowest rate since 1974.

In the North West, the employment rate was 3.47m, up 20,000 on the year and up 294,000 since 2010.

The unemployment rate was down 145,000 since 2010, now at 150,000.

Northern Powerhouse Minister, Jake Berry MP, said: “Five years on from the launch of the Northern Powerhouse, people across the North have benefitted from economic growth worth billions of pounds, tens of thousands of new jobs and powers and money being transferred away from Westminster. Our commitment to boosting opportunities for people across the North West is stronger than ever.

He added: “This month I signed the £394.5 million Borderlands Growth Deal which will unlock unprecedented investment and hundreds of new jobs in Cumbria”