South West Minister Talks Jobs Of The Future With Bristol Teens

Thursday, February 25th 2010 15:00

Minister for the South West has been speaking to young people in Bristol today about the challenges they face finding work in the economy of the future.

Jim Knight has met with leading regional decision-makers, entrepreneurs and local students at @Bristol this afternoon to discuss how young people can rise to the challenge of getting a job in tomorrow's global economy.

At the 'FutureStory' event, the Minister has also urged Bristol businesses to support local youngsters as the region moves into economic recovery.

He said: "FutureStory in Bristol and the South West is about bringing together the current generation of decision-makers to talk with the next generation of decision-makers about the future of the region and the type of jobs that will be available to them.

"Today's 16-year-olds will be working in a radically different economy in 20 years' time. Young people need to be able to, in a sense, tell the story of their own future, so that they can grasp the opportunities on offer in the years to come. Bringing leading regional decision-makers together with employers and young people is a good way of helping plot Bristol's FutureStory."

Mr Knight says creating top end jobs in science and engineering will be a priority for the future. When we asked him if there's any danger that developments like the planned Bristol Science Park, which had millions in funding announced earlier this week, will fail to cater for workers at the other end of the spectrum he said: "There'll be fifteen hundred jobs building it, that in inself will be a different range of people. There's also a conference centre that'll be an important resource for Bath and Bristol which will have a range of different people working in it. And then there's all the maintenance and ongoing cleaning and all those other sorts of jobs that'll be there."