High levels of joblessness across the UK are fuelling a hiring boom at Jobcentre Plus, which will recruit 2,000 people per month for the next six months to work across the organisation. Capita Resourcing People Development and Manpower have won contracts to run assessment centres as part of its recruitment process.

“We are recruiting to a range of roles in the organisation — people to work in our contact centres, benefit processing centres, and our Jobcentres giving face-toface advice on looking for work,” a spokeswoman for the Department of Work and Pensions told Recruiter.

“We need people to have a good level of literacy and numeracy, and we assess people against our competence framework. Customer service skills are particularly important.” The spokeswoman said that 25% of the jobs will be filled by unemployed people.

The jobs will primarily be full-time roles “but we can also accommodate a range of part-time hours”, she said. The jobs will be offered on 18-month contracts, with the option to extend if required.

The jobs and recruiters’ contracts are funded by £3bn injected by the government in response to the downturn — £1.3bn in the Pre-Budget Report and £1.7bn following the Budget.

Capita told Recruiter that it would be looking to help Jobcentre Plus recruit 40% of the new staff over the next few months, as a result of the six-month contract won last month. Capita will be focusing its work in Scotland and the North of England.

Marietta Walker, director of assessment and development for Capita Resourcing People Development, told Recruiter: “It is going to be a challenging task. There is a large volume of candidates and a short timeframe, but Capita has a proven track record in effective service delivery, so it’s a challenge I feel confident that Capita can handle.”

Manpower would only confirm it was working on the contract.