To ask the Minister for the Economy, pursuant to AQW 303/22-27, to detail any direct, on the ground assistance he is giving to businesses to help them fill staff vacancies.

The Department for Communities’ Employer Engagement Service provides a service to businesses to help fill staff vacancies.

My Department’s Assured Skills academies provide demand led, pre-employment training programmes which offers new and expanding local companies the opportunity to work closely with the DfE, Invest NI (INI) and the Further and Higher Education sector to recruit high quality employees. All participants who successfully complete an Academy will be interviewed for a guaranteed job vacancy with the company. To date, in the 2021/22 financial year, 43 of the 48 academies scheduled have been completed, resulting in 552 of the 625 participants upskilled, accepting an offer of full-time employment.

Apprentices participating on the ApprenticeshipsNI Programme are in paid employment from day one and follow a national training framework which leads to the attainment of industry approved competence and knowledge based qualifications, at Level 2 or 3. My Department’s Higher Level Apprenticeship (HLA) programme provides funding for the delivery of off the job training at levels 4 to 7, which is equivalent to Foundation Degree through to Masters level study. HLAs are demand-led, work-based programmes designed around the needs of employers, offering recognised Higher Education qualifications to new employees and existing employees taking on new roles which require significant training and development.

My Department also provides assistance through the provision of Traineeships and Advanced Technical Awards at level 3 which prioritise those skills that are most economically relevant and contribute to increasing the proportion of working age population with qualifications at level 2 and level 3.