News Updates
Ambitious unemployed winners land jobs - Posted 18th February 2004.
Real qualifications have led direct to real jobs for more than two dozen unemployed men from across the North East. And now their skills are to be recognized at a special presentation event on 12 March 2003.The 28 men, aged 19-45 and some of them unemployed for more than a year, will complete their courses in Gas Network Operations NVQ1 and the New Roads and Streetworks Act at the beginning of March and most are expected to walk straight into jobs.
The 13 week course is run by Wearside based Lomax Training Services in conjunction with Energy Utilities and Skills the former national training organisation, GWINTO. It was also backed by the Government's Ambition Energy project which aims to help address the skills shortage in the gas industry. Each of the men have been trained on excavation and reinstatement of highways, signage, lighting and guarding of streetworks, health and safety including the handling of chemicals and other substances and fire fighting.
Most are expected to join Transco, the gas pipeline company, or pipeline contractors, Enterprise plc who hosted the course at their Low Thornley site at Rowlands Gill.
It's the biggest course of its type ever held in the North and has attracted people from across Tyne and Wear, County Durham, Northumberland and Whitehaven in Cumbria. "It has been a tremendous success for the people doing the course," said Keith Gill, Training Manager for Lomax Training Services, "They have learned real skills very quickly and we know that most of them have a job to go. We now plan to run more similar courses to help more people do the same."Return to Top of page