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Creative industries urged to build Olympic legacy

CREATE Jobs aims to tackle youth unemployment and provide new routes into the arts and creative industries

31 July 2012

UK - London museums, event producers, and firms working in music, digital and gaming industries are today urged to play their part in building a lasting Olympic legacy, by helping transform the long-term career opportunities of young people from the capital's most deprived boroughs.

CREATE Jobs - which aims to tackle youth unemployment and provide new routes into the arts and creative industries - wants creative industry employers to provide eight-week traineeships for talented young people from the six Olympic Host Boroughs (Barking & Dagenham, Greenwich, Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest), where youth unemployment is at its highest.

The initiative has already won support from the Whitechapel Gallery, Hip Hop Shakespeare Company, and Shoreditch Trust, and has successfully placed 100 young people. With a booming creative economy, where 1:6 jobs in London are provided by the cultural sector, organisers from CREATE Jobs now want to extend the scheme and encourage museums, events producers and firms working in the music, digital and gaming industries to get on board.

To reduce the administrative and organisational burden on participating companies, CREATE Jobs will match and recruit trainees to placement opportunities. Employers taking part in the scheme will also receive direct support on practical issues, like child protection clearance, insurance, and other legal issues, making it simple for even the smallest company to participate.

Steve Moffitt, chief executive of A New Direction, which is delivering CREATE Jobs says, "We have thriving arts and creative industry in this country; a 6th of our economy is generated by creative people. With employment across the arts, heritage, digital and creative sectors predicted to rise by 32% over the next ten years, we need to find a sustainable way to identify and train talented young people to take up these roles."

(Jim Evans)