Sadiq Khan promises new training academies to help Londoners retrain as he launches first campaign billboard with focus on ‘Jobs, Jobs, Jobs’
30th March 2021
- Mayor pledges four new skills academies to help Londoners retrain and find new jobs
- Sadiq Khan to launch first campaign billboard
- New advert emphasises his top priority if re-elected will be ‘jobs, jobs, jobs’
The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, today launched his first campaign billboard in central London displaying the words ‘Jobs, Jobs, Jobs’, as he unveiled his plans to use the new £32m Good Work Fund to help Londoners hardest hit by the pandemic get into good quality and well-paid jobs.
Sadiq will say – if he is re-elected on the 6th of May – that a top priority will be ‘protecting jobs, supporting job creation and helping Londoners who have found themselves unemployed back into work.’
The Mayor’s £32m Good Work Fund will be used to equip Londoners with the skills they need to secure jobs in ‘futureproof’ sectors including low carbon, health and social care, creative and digital. The funds will establish sector-specific London ‘Academies’ to provide Londoners with essential workplace skills and Londoners will also be able to access employment support thorough an additional £318m in funding as part of the Adult Education Budget (AEB) in the next academic year.
Sadiq’s vision is that the training, upskilling and support available through the AEB will help prepare ‘the 300,000 Londoners who have lost their jobs as a result of the pandemic, for a swift return to work’.
The Good Work Fund is part of a £544 million package of investment which will be focused on creating jobs and revitalising local areas. It will help coordinate skills, careers and job-related support so there is no ‘wrong door’ for Londoners seeking employment assistance and forms part of the London Recovery Programme developed and delivered in partnership with boroughs, businesses and educational institutions.
As Mayor, Sadiq has been a vocal advocate for unemployed Londoners during the pandemic urging the government to provide greater support for self-employed workers and lobbying for the temporary uplift in Universal Credit to be made permanent. He has also pledged to maximise City Hall expenditure to support London’s recovery and help create or retain jobs in the capital.
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said: “My focus for a second term in City Hall will be on jobs, jobs jobs – as part of my plan to build a brighter future for all Londoners after the pandemic.
“I will help protect existing jobs, support businesses to create new ones and help Londoners who have lost their job during the pandemic to get back into work.
“These new training academies will play a key role in helping Londoners get into good quality and well-paid jobs in the future.
“The election on May 6 is a two-horse race between me and the Tory candidate and I’m asking all Londoners to lend me their vote so we can focus on jobs, jobs, jobs.
ENDS
