Business News

The Global SME Finance Forum is the largest, most technically in-depth, and geographically diverse conference on SME financing hosted around the world each year. Last year, as COVID-19 ushered the world unexpectedly, the decion was made to move the panels online and build a virtual community.

The event attracted over 2600 registrations from 1000+ commercial banks, development finance institutions, fintech companies, and regulators from 150+ countries, which broke our record for the number of registrations.

A massive overhaul of transport in Birmingham city centre is planned to meet the challenges of the next decade.

The Birmingham Transport Plan 2031, based on a 2020 consultation, is scheduled to be discussed at Birmingham City Council’s Cabinet meeting next Tuesday.

A virtual Job’s Club has been launched to help people get jobs in the construction industry.

Midlands based construction company, RMF Group has launched the monthly Jobs Club, in partnership with the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA), to engage with local communities and share various training and career opportunities within the construction sector. The first club will be held they (Thursday October 7) at 3pm and can be joined via https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/west-midlands-combined-jobs-club-7-october-tickets-175441780087

The event, which is supported by the Department for Work and Pensions and Colleges West Midlands, focuses on the construction industry. Each month selected employers will talk about various projects across the region and help available for individuals wanting to start a career in construction within the West Midlands.

Andy Street, Mayor of the West Midlands and chair of the WMCA, said: “This new Jobs Club is a great initiative to help people find good quality work as part of my 100,000 jobs plan.

“We know construction is a major growth area in the West Midlands that will create tens of thousands of jobs in the coming years, and we need to use programmes like RMF’s to help local people take advantage of those jobs. Coming in the wake of the end of the furlough scheme, the Jobs Club follows on from last week’s announcement that the WMCA has a £25 million package of training support to help unemployed people across the region find work.”

The Jobs Club initiative is accompanied by the RMF Fresh Start jobs website, which plays an integral role in linking employers with those who face systematic barriers within our society and aims to bring about change in the approach taken by the construction and rail industries towards recruitment. Employers are given the opportunity to advertise live job vacancies and access a network of trained candidates seeking roles within the industry.

RMF’s business and social value director, Dara McCarthy, said: “Fresh Start organically promotes corporate social responsibility in the core of its business practices by providing ex-offenders and under-represented groups with the relevant training, development and qualifications required to find economic stability and reintegrate back into society. We don’t just train candidates – we are completely focused on getting them into work too.”

RMF Group delivers regular construction training and is dedicated to being socially inclusive. It runs an in-house labour supply model, which satisfies its client’s workforce requirements through the utilization of a rapidly growing employee base. This multi-service offer has helped RMF remain busy throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and it has continued to provide training both virtually and at its 22 acre construction training site, specialising in delivering plant and groundwork and qualifications.

Award-winning events and conference venue, Millennium Point, has seen a surge in event enquiries demonstrating confidence that in-person business events are steadily making a comeback to the corporate calendar.

Since fully reopening its 17 diverse events spaces in July, Millennium Point has reported a 26% increase in enquiries each month for corporate events taking place in 2021 and 2022, with an impressive increase in overall enquiries of 96% between April 2021 and July 2021.

City of Wolverhampton Council have announced its preferred developer for its Bilston Urban Village employment site. It has selected commercial property company Goold Estates to develop top-grade units ranging from 5,000 to 25,000 sq ft on almost 15 acres of vacant brownfield land.

The £17.6 million construction of the new industrial and commercial units in Bilston could deliver up to 400 jobs and support demand for a range of commercial units from new and existing businesses.

Conrad Energy, the UK’s largest flexible power producer, and GE Renewable Energy are delighted to announce the signing of a major framework agreement for the design, manufacture, and supply of GE’s battery energy storage system in the UK. This agreement reflects the commitment of Conrad Energy and GE to supporting the UK’s transition to a low carbon economy and is the next step for Conrad Energy in the build out of their growing 500MW battery pipeline 

Make UK has partnered with support platform Next Gen Makers to develop a ground-breaking Engineering Apprenticeships Employer Kitemark, which will recognise companies who achieve a best practice benchmark, and thus endorse them as an exemplary employer of apprentices.

Launched on National Manufacturing Day (October 1st), the kitemark will be available to companies that are part of the recently launched Engineering Apprenticeships: Best Practice Programme – a Make UK backed initiative designed to support manufacturers to overcome skills challenges and build talent for future success.

Birmingham 2022, the organisers of the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, which will be staged from 28 July to 8 August 2022, has officially signed the Race at Work Charter.

An initiative, which is designed to improve outcomes for employees from ethnically diverse communities, the Race at Work Charter was launched in partnership with the UK Government in 2018 and builds on the work of the 2017 McGregor-Smith Review.

West Midlands Pension Fund has become the latest organisation to become a tenant of the city’s new i9 development. It means the office space in the premium Grade A complex at the heart of the city’s commercial district and award-winning transport Interchange has been almost fully let within just seven weeks of construction of the building being completed.

West Midlands Pension Fund will occupy just under 20,000 sq ft on the second and third floors of the eye-catching development and it will be the base for 180 roles, with growth expected from emerging employment opportunities across customer, benefit, financial and investment services supporting the delivery of pension benefits to 340,000 members in the West Midlands.

Two months on from ‘Freedom Day’ new research shows that seven in ten (69%) former office workers are still working from home full or part-time.  

The rise in home working has seen the end of the 9-to-5 with 27% of home workers saying they work longer hours at home and 43% said they split their working hours across the day.

The BCBF (Black Country Business Festival) is now in its fourth year and has seen continued growth and support from the local business community.

The Black Country Chamber of Commerce, Talbots Law and Dudley Business First are partners for 2021.

The West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) has set out a package of measures to help the region’s unemployed gain the skills needed to get back into work. With the Government’s furlough employment support scheme ending, and the region’s economy still recovering from the shock of the coronavirus pandemic, the WMCA is stepping in with £25 million worth of training support to help unemployed people across the region get jobs.

Working with the region’s colleges and providers, the WMCA’s support will be targeted at skilling up people for roles in sectors where jobs are being created - including digital, logistics, health and social care, rail, and construction.

The furlough scheme closes yesterday, with uncertain times ahead for people who have not yet fully returned to work.

Nearly one million workers were expected to be on the scheme at the end of September, according to estimates by the Office for National Statistics.

As the Job Retention Scheme (Furlough) is coming to an end in the UK, a paper published by the University of Birmingham concluded the government designed scheme preserves a worker’s job during the COVID-19 pandemic but it provokes substantial decline of their monthly income that may trigger financial distress.

Research led by Christoph Görtz, Danny McGowan and Mallory Yeromonahos of the Birmingham Business School used household survey data from the Understanding Society Database provided first-hand evidence on whether the UK furlough scheme has been designed effectively and whether it prevented household financial distress during the Covid-19 pandemic.

According to a nationally-representative survey into 2,000 UK workers, conducted by corporate transport technology specialist Kura, an increase of just £5 to daily travel costs may hold the key to solving the UK’s car-led climate emergency.  

The research findings revealed that nearly half (45.3%) of employees would consider forgoing their cars in favour of an alternative transport method if daily costs increased.

Top chefs and restauranteurs owners from across the region have joined forces with Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce to voice concerns over the imminent reversal of VAT rate reductions.

In a letter to Chancellor Rishi Sunak, the Chamber and well-known hospitality industry figures such as Simpsons owner Andreas Antona and TV chef Glynn Purnell are calling for an extension to the rates reduction in a bid to drive consumer demand.