On Monday we celebrated achieving 1,000 single parents into work in Doncaster. Local MP Rosie Winterton came along to celebrate this achievement and congratulate all those involved. Rosie, Minister for Transport and Minister for Yorkshire and the Humber remembered opening the single parent office four years ago. Since then the team have worked with almost 2000 single parents and have now found over 1,000 of them work. Kaye Rideout, Senior Operations Manager for Yorkshire, thanked Rosie for coming, thanked partners, particularly Jobcentre Plus for their support and thanked the Reed team for their achievements. 

Yesterday saw the publication of the latest employment trends, which were something of a mixed bag. The unemployment rate was unchanged at 5.2%, total employment climbed by 117,000 to reach 29.5 million, but unemployment rose by 14,000 to 1.61 million. Commentators are now in broad agreement that the economy is slowing, but my view is this should not prevent us continuing to help thousands of jobseekers. There are still plenty of vacancies available, indeed today on Reed.co.uk alone there are over 227,000. Our job is make sure we are preparing people for these vacancies and it may be that we have to do this even more effectively over the coming months.

There is still a huge unused talent amongst those out of work and our job is to unlock it. What do you think?

Chris Melvin, Managing Director, Reed in Partnership. 15 May 2008

Employment is approaching 30 million for the first time and we have the lowest claimant count since 1975. At Reed in Partnership we have had a great few months with record numbers of our members going into work. We put much of this down to our improving links with large employers and we believe this is crucial to our continued success. At our recent Board meeting we agreed to significantly  increase our investment in this area.

Tell us your experience of the current jobs market.

    * Are the jobs still out there despite the credit crunch?
    * What do you think providers need to do to be successful?


Chris Melvin 28 April 2008

This is the space for people in Welfare to Work to voice their views, comment on developments, debate new initiatives and come together to discuss what's going on.

Over the coming months customers, providers, officials and politicians will give their views on what's happening and ask you to contribute to the debate.

You can post your comments below.

If you have a topic you want on the Forum please e-mail me at chris.melvin@reed.co.uk - you'll decide what we debate.