Job Centres may be missing an opportunity

Job Centres may be missing an opportunity to help some people back into work, claims British Franchise of the Year, Autosmart International.

“We have franchises available in a number of the redundancy “hot spots” throughout the UK, said Autosmart Managing Director, Sophie Atkinson. “ We contacted 5 Job Centres, thinking that they would be pleased to hear about potential opportunities in their area and all of them referred us back to the central Job Centre Plus office. We were amazed to find that they were not interested, as the opportunity is for someone to start their own business, rather than work for someone else.

“There are over 200 full and associate members of the British Franchise Association, many of whom are actively recruiting franchisees. That’s a lot of potential opportunities that are being ignored by Job Centres.”

Sophie continues, “The irony is that franchising is one area of the economy that is still doing well and many people that purchase a franchise opportunity have recently been made redundant. The 2008 Franchising Survey, published by NatWest, showed that in 2007 the economic contribution from franchising grew at nearly five times that of the national GDP growth (15% economic growth in franchising against a 3.1% GDP growth).

“I think in today’s economic climate it is important that Job Centres are able to offer job seekers as wide a choice of options as possible. The days of paid employment being the “safe choice” are now behind us and we all need to look at new ways of getting the economy rolling again.”