High unemployment
Bradford had one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, at 17 per cent compared to a national average of 5 per cent. Unemployment in the black and minority ethnic population was three and a half times that of the white population. At the same time, the local workforce wasn’t able to supply the construction skills that employers needed, forcing them to bring in people from outside of the area. Within Yorkshire, only 1.7 per cent of the construction workforce is black or Asian.
Trainees on the Youthbuild programme
Perceptions of the construction industry
When it looked into the reasons behind the skills shortage, Accent Community Partnerships found that construction was not perceived as a good career choice by many Asian families. As a result, young Asians often failed to consider a career in construction and those that did sometimes struggled through a lack of support and encouragement.
The approach taken by Accent Community Partnerships was to identify the issues behind the skills shortage and design training programmes to tackle them. The main group they wanted to reach was young people from ethnic minorities, particularly individuals outside of the mainstream education system and at risk of committing criminal offences. Another priority was women, especially those from ethnic minorities.
In addition to funding from Accent, the project is financially supported from organisations including the Learning and Skills Council, the European Social Fund, the Construction Industry Training Board and Fair Cities.
Topics associated with this project
Community engagement, Education, Housing, Partnership working, Training