JOBSEEKERS are being offered the opportunity to learn computer coding in a joint initiative aimed at upskilling unemployed islanders.
The Job Centre and the GTA University Centre are coming together to run a coding course for a dozen people currently looking for work. The course, which runs over seven days, will be run by Jersey-based company, Codex, whose founders, Richard Rolfe and Jordan Love, ran a similar initiative in Jersey earlier this year.
‘Commerce & Employment has highlighted digital industries as an area of enormous potential growth for the island and they are looking at a raft of different ideas to promote Guernsey as a recognised, and reputable hub for this sector,’ said GTA University deputy chief executive Simon Le Tocq.
‘As part of that, it is important that we have people with the right skills and we recognise that young people, who are currently out of work but who have grown up with technology at their fingertips, already have the technical knowhow and it’s a case of channelling that and expanding their understanding.’
Martin Bridle, Job Centre manager at Social Security, said it was important that those islanders out of work were supported in their efforts to learn new skills.
‘This is an excellent example of the public and private sectors working together for the benefit of unemployed islanders and Guernsey as a whole. This is an area that will interest a significant number of our jobseekers and we are confident that with their new knowledge that will be an asset to future employers’ he said.