 This Passionate About Employment supplement marks the start of a 12-month campaign aimed at regional employers. For more than a year, the North East Employer Coalition (NEEC) has been working behind the scenes with a number of the region's foremost agencies and stakeholders, along with Trinity Mirror, to devise a platform to highlight the potential of the North-East's vast labour market pool of 250,000 jobless residents. At a time when the local business environment is very buoyant, the only grey cloud on the horizon is that many employers are experiencing increasing difficulty in finding and recruiting staff to meet their expanding business needs. Severe skills shortages are being reported in a number of sectors and to satisfy this requirement, some employers are looking to Eastern Europe. Yet many of the region's current economically inactive people possess the requisite skills to fill these positions backed by a genuine desire to return to work. Individuals end up on benefit for a whole host of reasons - redundancy, minor health problems, caring for family members and so on. Nearly all clients when they first start to claim benefit expect to return to work. Unfortunately, after just one year on benefit, there is only a one in five chance of returning to employment, although most sickness absence and long-term incapacity are caused by mild to moderate health problems. Most people on benefit are not working because they are ill, but many are ill because they are not working. Government initiatives such as Pathways to Work and the Northern Way pilots have laid the foundations for working with many of these individuals, putting together personalised packages of support to get them job ready. This means that employers should not need to lower their expectations for the selection of available candidates and, moreover, having appointed staff from this pool, they can rely on a tremendous amount of support. For the first time, not only does the region possess a strategy for getting the long-term unemployed into employment, now there is also a recognised process with the agencies involved which enables the available funding streams to be knitted together via the Regional Employability Framework that ensures that there is consistency of effort and approach. The public sector employs almost 25% of the region's people and has a major contribution to make as an employer. The private sector also generates many thousands of jobs and is in a strong position to provide an "entrepreneurial" dimension to tackling the social challenge of employability. Throughout 2007, we will be bringing you news about the strides forward that the region has been taking, leading the way nationally with its Regional Employability Framework and its target of getting 70,000 more people into work as well as the steps we have taken to develop a range of common objectives and policies - a joined-up approach. Many employers in the region, large and small, already work with the NEEC and their involvement provides powerful leverage in the effective design and delivery of programmes that develop self-esteem and equip individuals with the skills required to make them ready for employment. We are hoping that many more employers will engage with us to address the regional employability agenda and bring those who have the desire to take up employment opportunities closer to the world of work. We are very excited about the potential of the Passionate About Employment campaign which we envisage being rolled out nationwide to make an even larger impact on the jobless total as well as helping the region maintain its position at the forefront of innovation in employability strategy. Please help us to make it a success. CHRIS THOMPSON, CHAIRMAN, NEEC; DEPUTY CHAIRMAN, ONE NORTHEAST | 
Have your say on the issues affecting you and your business in the North East >>>
Sign up to our Daily Emails and receive the latest business news and features delivered to your inbox >>>
Subscribe to our RSS nebusiness news feeds >>>
