Today the Telegraph & Argus launches a campaign to put the need to create new jobs – especially for young people – right at the top of the agenda across the Bradford district.

According to the latest figures, more than 20,000 people in Bradford are claiming Jobseekers’ Allowance, with almost 6,000 of these being young people.

Those figures are not sustainable if Bradford is to prosper and our young people are to have a meaningful future.

So our new Foundation for Jobs campaign is aimed at bringing the issue of unemployment – and, more importantly, employment – to the fore by working with key industry, private sector and public sector organisations and individuals to find ways to create new hope for the future.

We aim to give our young people a more positive outlook by encouraging the creation of more jobs, apprenticeships, and internships; making access to employment opportunities easier for both companies and job seekers; and highlighting the good work being done across the district to tackle the rising tide of youth unemployment.

The Foundation for Jobs campaign aims to act as a catalyst for promoting and publicising job creation initiatives as well as encouraging businesses both to create new opportunities and to build closer links with schools to open up the world of work for young people while they are still in the classroom.

T&A editor Perry Austin-Clarke said: “There is a fantastic amount of effort being put in across the district to get Bradford working again but it’s not always obvious to either job creators or job seekers how it relates to them.

“We think the T&A has a big part to play in pulling together and promoting those initiatives while, at the same time, encouraging businesses and other organisations to put their trust in our youth and create more opportunities for them to show what they can do.

“Businesses can do more to help themselves by directly engaging with young people, schools and colleges to help prepare them for the jobs that are going to be out there when they’re ready to join the world of work.

“Bradford has talent and skill in abundance but businesses need to look to the future and help create the pathway to get local young people into local jobs, to the benefit of all.”

As the campaign progresses we will be focusing on the many different initiatives which are already under way, such as Bradford Council’s Get Bradford Working programme.

This £7.7 million project, the biggest local authority back-to-work scheme in the country, started in March and has already been praised by Shadow Employment Minister Stephen Timms.

Council leader David Green said: “The Council is delighted that the T&A has launched this campaign to help boost local business and employment.

“Bradford faces many challenges and the more this sort of initiative comes forward the greater the possibilities of meeting these challenges by developing partnerships working with public and private sector.

“We need to link existing initiatives such as Get Bradford Working with the T&A campaign and with our efforts to improve the skills and educational attainment for young people to create a vibrant economy in Bradford for the 21st Century.”

The T&A is also backing the Foundation for Jobs campaign commercially by developing a new advertising strategy to make it simpler and more cost effective for firms to advertise their jobs to the right candidates – and to help job-hunters put themselves in front of trainers and job providers.

We will be publishing local Job Centre vacancies for free; offering FREE lineage advertisements for job-hunters to put themselves right in front of potential hirers; giving our regular recruitment advertisers second ads without charge; and offering special rates to firms who do not normally advertise to encourage them to get their job vacancies out to our readers, among a host of other initiatives.

Sandy Needham, chief executive of Bradford Chamber of Commerce, said: “Businesses are still recruiting and are keen to take on local people. This initiative can make it easier and cheaper to make the connections between those looking for work and employers, so it is good news.”

As part of the campaign we’ll also be working hard to create the ultimate shop window to benefit both companies looking to take on people and job-seekers, offering young people the chance to sell themselves by uploading their CVs to a new section on our website which can then be browsed through or searched by local employers to find the best candidates for jobs, apprentices and internships.

The Rt Rev Nick Baines, Bishop of Bradford, has also thrown his weight behind the campaign. He said: “The way to create a healthy society is to provide as much employment as possible. Employment not only builds resources but provides dignity and a sense of achievement.

“In a Europe where youth unemployment is reaching astronomical proportions, we will face dreadful consequences in years to come. Therefore we have to provide people with the best possible chance of finding work. I applaud this campaign to provide practical ways to enable that to happen.”

Bradford Council for Mosques Secretary, Zulfi Karim said: “I welcome anything which goes towards tackling youth unemployment and would urge big businesses as well as small and medium enterprises to get involved with this scheme to get your young people in work.

“We have a fantastic opportunity in Bradford as we have a young population with amazing talent and enthusiasm.

“Bradford is a great place to do business as we have young, vibrant and dynamic people just waiting to be given the right opportunities and the Foundation for Jobs scheme has to be the sort of positive initiative to help.”