Government launches Talent Retention Solution in bid to salvage skills

The TRS will initially focus on retaining skills from the defence sector, which is braced for heavy job cuts. Business minister, Mark Prisk, said: "This is about talent retention. We want to make sure we don't see a specialist industry hit problems, shed staff and those workers change career completely or go abroad where we lose them from UK engineering." The TRS could be used to salvage skills under threat at train manufacturer Bombardier, Prisk confirmed. "It's a little early to pre judge what Bombardier will or won't do...but if individuals were made redundant this helps enormously by opening up a huge range of opportunities." Bombardier has annouced upto 1500 job losses at its Derby site. Meanwhile BAE Systems will shed 2000 staff in the wake of defence spending cuts. Employees could be redeployed to suitable jobs in sister manufacturing sectors under the TRS. Rolls-Royce, Siemens, Nissan and Airbus have signed up to the scheme's pilot as they look to fill over 2,000 vacancies. Over 1,500 companies could have enrolled when TRS goes fully operational next January, the government said. The scheme has been developed by Semta and the Skills and Jobs retention group. TRS will be self funded by industry from its full launch in January.