Manpower turns to Jobcentre Plus for Christmas recruitment boost

Manpower is a recruiter of specialist and flexible workforces and employs over 100,000 people each year through a network of more than 300 offices.

It has a long-standing relationship with Sony in South Wales, where the electronics company has 2,400 full-time workers at its manufacturing plants in Bridgend and Pencoed.

Every year the demand for workers, especially short-term employees, rises significantly after August as Sony increases production in time for Christmas, said Manpowerís contract manager Helen McDowell.

Jobcentre Plus field account manager Chris Gibbon takes up the story: The main problem facing Sony and Manpower was a local job market with low unemployment. We therefore recommended searching for suitable jobseekers over a larger geographical area.

On paper, this advice appeared to provide Manpower and Sony with a feasible solution, but Chris knew that more work was required before both organisations could proceed.

Although the neighbouring Rhondda Valley has a large labour pool, poor local transport links mean that very few prospective workers could travel to either of Sonyís plants, he continued. In addition, early morning starts would have made it difficult for non-Bridgend and Pencoed residents to get to work in time.

Consequently, Jobcentre Plus proposed two measures: amending working hours to make vacancies more attractive and introducing subsidised transport to and from the factories and Aberdare, a town lying at the southern edge of the Rhondda Valley.

However, Manpower needed to learn more about this untapped labour market before implementing these changes.

We had to satisfy ourselves about the quantity and quality of potential workers before making the changes that Jobcentre Plus recommended, Helen McDowell explained. Combined with the introduction of flexible working hours and greater provisions for part-time workers, Jobcentre Plus helped us to fill all our outstanding vacancies and ensured that Sony met its production targets.