Looking ahead to employment in maintaining the country’s infrastructure, the partnership will create a bespoke training course on operating specialist on-site machinery.

As part of its region-wide response to the Covid-19 shutdown, the WMCA is equipping local people with the skills needed to gain jobs in sectors like infrastructure and construction that are considered to be key in driving the region’s economic recovery and future growth when the lockdown is lifted, a WMCA statement said.

“Many of these sectors are recruiting new workers right now,” the statement said.

The course is funded through the WMCA’s Construction Gateway programme, which offers unemployed people free construction training and a guaranteed job interview at the end of the course. 

The WMCA includes city and metropolitan borough councils in Birmingham, Wolverhampton Dudley, Solihull, Sandwell and Walsall as well as a number of non-constituent authorities with reduced voting rights.

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