If UK construction cannot reach a million willing young people, who can?

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With Alan Milburn’s review into NEETs imminent, it’s time for the construction industry to move beyond outreach. Firms must establish lasting links with unemployed young people to turn their enthusiasm into enduring careers, says Morgan Sindall’s Timothy Clement

All over the UK, people from tier one contractors and our collective supply chain stand in front of young people who have never considered construction as a career. They run site visits, classroom sessions, work experience weeks and careers events. It is some of the most valuable work our industry delivers. Young people who arrive thinking the industry is cold, dirty and closed to them leave having met a site manager who started as an apprentice and a quantity surveyor who looks like them. You cannot choose a career you have never seen, and shifting those dated assumptions is what that work is for.

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