Remploy helps hundreds find employment

Remploy’s branch at Raines House, on Denby Dale Road in Wakefield, helped 394 people find jobs in the last financial year.

The figure increased by five per cent in 2012-13, when specialist training and employment support from the team helped 377 people with disabilities and health conditions find a job.

Lesley Shaw, Remploy’s regional operations manager for Yorkshire, said: “When employers come to Remploy to fill their vacancies, they know that they are going to be interviewing well-prepared candidates.

“They tell us that employees who came to them from Remploy stay in the job longer and are less likely to take time off work.

“We listen to employers’ needs and help them to better understand and enjoy the benefits of employing disabled people, in effect transforming their businesses.

“As a result we achieve the Remploy mission as a social business of helping to transform the lives of tens of thousands of disabled people through sustainable employment.”

The company, which was set up in 1946, previously ran factories in Pontefract and Leeds which provided jobs for disabled people.

But they were controversially closed down after the government decided to cease public funding for the factories in 2012 in favour of helping disabled people into mainstream jobs.

Remploy now has 64 UK offices which last year helped a total of 18,500 into work in 2013-14.

More than 80,000 people have been helped into work by Remploy in the last five years.

Beth Carruthers, Remploy’s chief executive, said “This wonderful achievement of supporting 82,500 people in the last five years is a tribute to the extensive relationships we have with employers and recognition that employing disabled people delivers real social and economic value.

“We are going from strength to strength and this year we anticipate passing the fantastic milestone of supporting into work more than 100,000 disabled and disadvantaged people in the last six years.”