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Employment and training opportunities rise in Plymouth

Sunday, 16 February 2025 08:05

By Alison Stephenson, local democracy reporter

Plymouth Civic Centre (image courtesy: Peter Halliday/Radio Exe)

There's expected to be 15,000 extra jobs over the next decade

The number of young people with special educational needs and disabilities (Send) in Plymouth going into education, employment and training has risen by a quarter in two years.

The figure has gone up from 72 per cent in January 2023 to 90 per cent in December 2024.

The city council’s natural infrastructure and growth scrutiny panel heard in a discussion about Skills4Plymouth, a partnership between the council and other organisations, employers and education providers, that specialised internships were helping Send young people.

They were being offered by independent vocational education and training establishment Discovery College which provides opportunities for Send young people up to the age of 25.

Tom Lavis, chief executive officer of Discovery College, based at the YMCA in Honicknowle, described the intern programme is similar to an apprenticeship but offers more support for people with additional needs.

Schemes in sport and leisure are being extended into tourism, hospitality and landscaping.

Discovery College also a specialist college for people who have fallen out of education.

Panel members heard that the number of young people classified as seeking employment, education or training (Seet) has halved from one in ten to one in 20,  unemployment in Plymouth is now one per cent lower than the national average,and the gap is closing between Plymouth and the average for England in GCSE and A-level results.

Work is being undertaken to promote a range of occupations to young people. It is estimated Plymouth needs 15,000 more workers over the next 10 years, with a particular demand in engineering and construction.

Plymouth is a leading hub for marine autonomy and much of the growth will be at Babcock’s Devonport Dockyard, which supports the UK’s submarine and surface fleet. Jobs in the marine sector are multiplying as firms are attracted to tax breaks provided by the city’s freeport status.

Councillors called for more to be done with primary schoolchildren to spark their interest in the skills Plymouth needs in future, and to encourage more girls into Stem (science, technology, engineering and maths) careers.

Plymouth currently has around 7,000 job vacancies a month, compared with 350 before covid.

Tina Brinkworth, head of skills and post-16 for the city council, said people are changing jobs more.

She said Oncourse Southwest, the council’s in-house adult education provider, supported more than 5,000 adults and young people in 2023/24, and Skills Launchpad Plymouth, a free service that helps people find training, education and jobs, supported almost 1,000 young people and over 900 adults.

Cllr Sally Cresswell (Lab, Stoke) said Plymouth could follow Manchester, which had created its own ‘baccalaureate’, an alternative to A levels that encompasses several subjects, tailor-made to the city’s needs and geared towards the blue/marine economy.

Around 2,000 people start apprenticeships in Plymouth each year, involving 16 per cent of school leavers, compared to the national average of 10 per cent.

Discover College’s Tom Lavis said degree apprenticeships don’t leave students in debt, had guaranteed employment with high quality employers and they got paid along the way.

He claimed that  it saves students £110,000 compared with the costs of university.
 

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