Story: Lisa Swift
The Messenger continues to ask for confirmation of how many Tesco jobs went to local residents.
Tesco ran recruitment processes during the summer, one of which was the ‘Job Guarantee Scheme’ which was open to people who had been unemployed for 6 months or more. The posts were to be targeted at local residents, so that the store would contribute to the regeneration of the area.
Tesco told the Messenger it had made ‘reasonable endeavours’ to fulfil its commitment to benefit local people: “The jobs targeting has led to 75% of jobs from the Regeneration Partnership going to people whose home addresses are within S3 and the adjoining postcodes of S1, S2, S4, S5, S6 and S7,the vast majority of the 75% being from S3, S4 and S5 postcodes.”
But as some parts of S3 and S5 are outside the Burngreave area and as S1, S2, S6 and S7 are not in Burngreave at all, it would seem that the percentage of local residents successfully gaining a job was lower than 75%.
In documents submitted as part of the planning application by Tesco, they stated that “recruitment outside the local area is not anticipated to exceed 10%.”
The Messenger has now filed a Freedom of Information request with Jobcentre Plus to find out how many jobs actually went to residents in the Burngreave area.