London Olympics creates opportunities for jobless

Mon, 10 Jan 2011

London Olympics creates opportunities for jobless

Thursday 10 June 2010
The construction of the Olympic Park, in preparation for the 2012 Olympics, has created jobs for a large number of people who were unemployed in the capital. However, more could be done to train new recruits, it has been claimed.

The London Olympics has so far produced nine qualified tradesmen and women through its apprenticeship programme – a number that critics claim is too low.

However, many jobs have been created - such as the one for 38-year-old Annamarie Ferguson from Camden. She studied for three years, but then found herself without a job. She then got work on the building of the Olympic Park where she works as a contractor installing temporary facilities.

Annamarie stated, “the Games only come along once in a lifetime and have given me what I needed - a job.” She went on to explain to the London Evening Standard how she is learning vital practical skills for life: “What's good about this is that when you work on the theory side only you have a picture of how everything is, but it doesn't always connect, the dots don't always connect. When you come on site those dots start connecting.”

Despite these new jobs, new figures suggest that the “skills legacy” that the Olympic chiefs claimed would result from the event, may not materialise as too few people are emerging with qualifications. However, it seems that a large number of apprenticeships are being offered by the Olympic committee, but may not be completed until several years after the 2012 games.

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