£15M is to be invested by the Government in new research and development projects and studies that will stimulate innovation and growth in the UK’s food industries.

Up to £15M will be invested in major R&D projects that aim to increase the efficiency, sustainability and competitiveness of the food processing and manufacturing sector, focussing on increasing efficiency and reducing supply chain waste.

A further £500,000 - targeted at micro, small and medium-sized companies - will be provided for feasibility studies that will consider better and more cost effective systems and processes, and the delivery of better products and services across the broader agri-food sector.

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Morrisons Chief Executive Dalton Philips will today set out plans for the retailer to become the UK’s largest fresh food manufacturer.

Philips will outline the goal at the company’s 2nd Farming Conference, where it will meet with more than 350 farmers and suppliers in the agricultural community.

New plans include a £21m investment to increase the company’s capacity at its abattoir in Colne, Lancashire. Morrisons is the only retailer to buy livestock from the farm and process them at its abattoirs in Colne, Spalding, Lincolnshire and Turriff, Aberdeenshire. There will also be investments in fruit, vegetables and salad packing to add to the company’s recent investments in seafood and meat processing.

Morrisons is to complete a £200m investment in the expansion of its manufacturing food arm by 2013. This will mean it will buy more fresh food directly from farmers than its rivals.

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Jaguar Land Rover has today announced the creation of 1,000 new jobs at its Halewood Operations manufacturing facility near Liverpool.

According to a statement, the new positions, which will support work on the Range Rover Evoque and Land Rover Freelander 2, will take the workforce at Halewood to almost 4,500.

Des Thurlby, Jaguar Land Rover human resources director, said:

‘These 1,000 new jobs are further evidence of JLR’s clear ambition for continued growth. We are moving Halewood to three shifts and 24-hour operation to meet increased global demand for our products.

‘JLR’s supply chain is also set to benefit, with thousands more jobs expected to be created. Our commitment to expand the Halewood workforce and increase production is great news for JLR, for Merseyside and for the wider UK economy.’

The new jobs recruited at Halewood will include production operators, supervisors and engineers. The company added that all new employees joining the production line will receive training towards an Intermediate (Level 2) Apprenticeship.

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Jenrick Engineering is a recruitment partner for many of the leading Engineering Corporations within the UK, providing an array of contract and permanent job opportunities for engineers who operate within this sector.

If you would like to  explore job opportunities in this sector, or wish to seek advice regarding recruiting contractors or permanent staff, please contact our offices at Burton on Trent (on 01283 548 121) or Crick, Northampton (on 01788 824555).

Source: theengineer.co.uk

London - Demand for engineering skills is continuing to defy the otherwise weak jobs market, buoyed by a surge in infrastructure investment, according to research by the Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo).

The research shows that demand for engineering candidates has risen throughout the eurozone crisis, as demand for highly skilled candidates in other sectors falls. Vacancies for engineers were up 1% year-on-year in January for permanent candidates; vacancies for temps and contractors were up 7% year-on-year in January.

Recently released official data shows that investment in infrastructure rocketed 23.5% year-on-year to a record £3.6 billion in Q4 2011, from £2.9 billion in Q4 2010. Infrastructure investment in 2011 was at its highest level since 1980.

APSCo says that demand for engineering contractors is particularly strong in the energy sector, including oil & gas, renewable energy and power transmission. In other sectors, such as aerospace, skills shortages are still an issue.

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Thousands of north west aerospace jobs have been safeguarded after Lockheed Martin handed contracts to make components for the new Joint Strike Fighter plane to a raft of firms in the region.

The defence giant named BAE Systems as a key contractor along with a number of sub-contractors on the 30-year, £32bn project to build more than 3,000 F-35 fighter jets.

BAE Systems will make sections of the fuselage, tail, wings, fuel system and more for the new fighter, which will then be shipped to the US for final assembly in Texas.

Most of the work will take place at Samlesbury in Lancashire, where around 1,000 staff will work directly on the F-35, with hundreds more across other BAE sites.

For every BAE job, another two jobs will be safeguarded in the north west supply chain, which includes component manufacturers Hyde Aerospace, of Stockport, and RLC Engineering Group, of Accrington. Manufacturer Kaman Composites, based in Darwen and manpower firm Morson, of Salford, are also on the list of suppliers.

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Amateur cybersleuths have been hunting malware, raising firewalls and fending off mock hack attacks in a series of simulations supported in part by Britain’s eavesdropping agency.

The games are intended to pull badly needed talent into the country’s burgeoning cybersecurity sector, according to former security minister Pauline Neville-Jones, who spoke at a closing ceremony Sunday at the Science Museum in the English port city of Bristol.

“The flow of people we have at the moment is wholly inadequate” to staff three new cybercrime units and the military’s recently opened global cyberoperations center. The skill gap “threatens the economic future of this country,” she said.

The Cyber Security Challenge is intended to help bridge that gap, drawing thousands of participants who spent weeks shoring up vulnerable home networks, cracking weak codes and combing through corrupted hard drives in tests designed by companies such as U.K. defense contractor QinetiQ and data security firm Sophos.

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A surge in infrastructure investment is fuelling demand for engineers, sparking skills shortages in the industry, research has showed.

Engineering vacancies for permanent and temporary jobs have increased since the start of the year, especially in the energy sector, including oil and gas and renewables.

Firms in other sectors such as aerospace were reporting skills shortages, according to the study by the Association of Professional Staffing Companies.

Chief executive Ann Swain said:

“Engineering remains the bright spot among the professional jobs market at the moment. Crossrail is Europe’s largest construction project and has created huge demand for engineering and project management specialists.

“With the Government focused on boosting investment in UK infrastructure projects, demand for engineering skills should remain buoyant.

“The UK has a long-term shortage of engineering skills. With demand so strong, the Government needs to ensure that the UK’s historical underproduction of engineering skills does not impede growth in vitals sectors such as oil & gas and power generation.”

Investment in infrastructure increased by almost a quarter in the final quarter of last year a record £3.6 billion compared to the same period in 2010, said the report.

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A £6 million expansion of the successful manufacturing plant of OSI Food Solutions in Scunthorpe has been announced by the American owners.

The investment is a major boost for the 21-year-old factory on the town’s Skippingdale Industrial Estate and its 180 employees.

The nine-acre site currently produces more than 40,000 tonnes of hamburgers and beefburgers for distribution around the UK.

Staffing levels, working hours and the number of service deliveries and collections from the site are expected to be maintained at the present level.

John Gray, the OSI Group’s commercial director for Europe, said that, subject to planning approval, it was hoped to start building the extension next month and have the first stage completed by February 2013.

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The number of people placed in permanent jobs in Britain grew at its fastest pace in nine months in February, a survey of recruitment agencies showed on Wednesday, chiming with a raft of recent news suggesting that the economy is on the mend.

The Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) said its monthly index of permanent staff placements rose for the second month running to 53.2 from 51.2 in January. Readings above 50 indicate growth.

Overall demand for staff rose at the quickest pace in four months, led by a sharp increase in permanent job openings.

“The latest report raises hopes of a spring revival in the jobs market,” said Bernard Brown, head of business services at accountants KPMG, who co-sponsor the survey.

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Source: euronews.com

Nissan will build its new compact car at its factory in Sunderland, creating 2,000 jobs and providing a major boost to one of the regions hardest hit by recession and spending cuts, the company says.

The business secretary, Vince Cable, will confirm at the Geneva Motor Show that the Nissan expansion - which will create 400 jobs at the factory and 1,600 more in the supply chain - was underwritten by £9m from the government’s regional growth fund.

He will say:

“The decision [from Nissan] is another clear vote of confidence in Britain’s manufacturing industry, and vindicates the government’s decision to put support for manufacturing at the core of its economic strategy.”

The move comes as 2,800 workers at the Vauxhall plant in Ellesmere Port, in the Wirral, await the outcome of a review of General Motors’ European operations that could lead to the closure of the factory.

Cable flew to New York last week to persuade executives at GM, which owns Vauxhall, to keep open the plant, which is one of the region’s biggest employers. But the business secretary told the BBC on Monday he had concerns about the factory’s future.

“We have set out a very positive case to them for remaining and indeed expanding their operations in the UK,” he said. “I’m positive, but it is their decision and they haven’t yet made it.”

GM is considering closing at least two factories in Europe, with Ellesmere Port and Bochum, in Germany, understood to be facing the most serious threat. GM is expected to make a decision on Ellesmere Port at the end of the month.

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