Cumbria Jobs: How do you get unemployed people from Barrow to fill much needed roles elsewhere

In September tourism and hospitality businesses - alongside those from other sectors - descended on The Forum, in the town’s Duke Street, to try and connect with potential employees.

The event was arranged by Cumbria Tourism and the Federation of Small Businesses, alongside partners from Local IQ, Jobcentre Plus and Inspira as part of Cumbria Tourism’s #theperfectplacetowork recruitment campaign.

The campaign is designed to help businesses promote their vacancies and challenge perceptions around what working in the sectors is like.

However, preconceptions are only part of the challenge.

Ray Jefferson, from Barrow, is no stranger to hard work and long hours.

The 41-year-old, who is currently studying a carpentry course at Furness College and previously worked in the construction sector, says he would happily take a bar or restaurant job in the South Lakes - if only he could get there more easily.

Despite seeing a number of places he may be interested in working at at the jobs fair, he says travelling to work is a barrier as he has not passed his driving test yet.

“I don’t mind hard work, I’ve been working in construction for about five years plus, from labouring to plastering,” he says.

“It’s just the transport that is the problem.”

Harry Kolbe, 60, worked in the shipyard until 1992 and then at Tesco for two years after that. Although he has done stints of voluntary work since, he has not had a paid job since 2002.

He believes his age is now becoming a barrier to employers taking him on, plus the fact that many are based outside the Barrow area.

“It’s just too out of my way, I can only really look in the Barrow and Dalton area because I don’t have a car,” he says.

Also, I am at the age now where you don’t really want to travel.”

In a world where job hunting and applications take place online, Harry says he still relies on word-of-mouth and adverts on notice boards and in shop windows to try and find employment.

Jobs at the fair which had caught his eye include working on the boats for Windermere Lake Cruises.

“I think there is a bus service that goes there so that could be a good option,” he says.

Chris Thexton, who was visiting the fair in his capacity as employment advisor for charity Groundwork, says transport and confidence are two big obstacles for people to overcome before they can begin filling the many jobs required in the county.

Groundwork, a charity focused on improving communities across the UK, works with around 60 people across the Furness area.

“They may have not been doing similar roles before, they may have been out of work for a while, they just need some support,” says Chris.

“Some of the older ones are not very tech savvy either.”

He says if people have been in a particular role for a long time and are then made redundant this can leave them out of their depth when it comes to getting used to job hunting and applying for jobs online.

“We help them with the basics like CV writing and just try and get their confidence up,” he says.

Billijo Taylor, 16, who is studying CTECs in business and travel and tourism alongside an A-Level in photography at Barrow Sixth Form College, was one of the younger people to attend the event.

Although she is keeping her options open, she is interested in eventually becoming a wedding photographer or working in the creative industries. She says there are more options for doing this kind of work beyond Barrow and Cumbria.

“There were a lot of different employers at the fair offering a range of opportunities so whatever you were looking for there would have been something to suit,” she says.

“I applied for about five different jobs that I could do part-time alongside my college studies, mostly front of house, reception, café work and waitressing.”

However, she says until she gets her driving licence she is likely to remain working near Barrow than travelling elsewhere.

"Travel lengthens your day and then you get tired and you’re also trying to fit it around college as well, it's easiest for now to just settle for something around here part-time, and then hopefully when I can drive I might be able to get something different," she says.

In the longer term she feels she may need to move out of Cumbria entirely to pursue her career.

"I was thinking a bigger city or somewhere that doesn't feel so out of the way,” she says.

Although the challenge of filling a skills gap created by young people leaving the county has long been a focus for employers, many are now facing a much more immediate issue, with well publicised labour shortages in many sectors.

Statistics from the Office of National Statistics showed there were 1685 people out of work in Barrow in August, the third highest of Cumbrian council areas behind Carlisle at 2835 and Allerdale at 2185.

This is a pool of people that some employers would dearly love to mobilise into an effective workforce.

Employers at the fair included English Lakes Hotels, which is considering paying for its own bus service to transport people to its premises, while another business said they were paying a £500 finder’s fee to anyone who could hook them up with new staff.

Ian Wilkinson, HR manager for Windermere Lake Cruises, says it has the advantage of a good bus link between Bowness and Barrow, as well as Lancaster and Morecambe.

However, this has not stopped it considering laying on its own service for staff in the past.

“It’s something we’ve looked at but because of the nature of what we do, the challenge is the finish times,” he says.

“If you’re a crew on a boat then it might be on charter that night until eight o’clock and others might finish at different times so your minibus is either going to hang on and make people wait or go with just a few of them. It’s also a question of where you run the bus to, because we have as many people from Kendal as we have from Morecambe and Lancaster.

“I also know how much it costs to run a bus service and it’s an awful lot of money.”

He says the challenge the business has faced this year has been finding staff for front-of-house and customer service roles.

“You don’t really need any qualifications and if you can smile and talk to customers then we can train you,” he says.

“It’s difficult because there are some people who are employable and I am sure there are jobs for them, but for these roles you’ve got to be confident, you’ve got to be able to talk to someone. Some people find that difficult. You can try and train someone to do that but if someone is naturally like that it’s a big ask.”