Scotland's Economy

Taskforce set up to support oil & gas jobs

January 14, 2015 by No Comments | Category Employment, Energy

A new Energy Jobs Taskforce will be established to support Scotland’s oil and gas sector, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced today.

The new Taskforce, chaired by Scottish Enterprise Chief Executive Lena Wilson, will report to the Scottish Energy Advisory Board and will focus on supporting jobs across the energy sector, but with an initial emphasis on the oil and gas sector.

The First Minister also announced a guarantee for Modern Apprentices (MAs) in Scotland’s oil and gas sector to ensure that any faced with redundancy will be offered alternative employment or continued off the job training pending alternative employment.

Additional support will be made available specifically to the oil and gas sector to enhance the offer available through the Adopt an Apprentice programme, which offers firms incentives to re-employ MAs who have have been made redundant.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said:

“Energy is an area where Scotland has a strong comparative advantage with its unique geographic opportunities and established expertise. This has led to the development of world leading technologies and skills in our oil and gas industry.

“The North Sea has made an enormous contribution to the Scottish and UK economies over the last 40 years. It is now vital, in order to prolong the life of the industry beyond 2050 and maximise economic benefits, that the UK Government maintains the momentum for fiscal and regulatory change in the oil and gas sector.

“I’ve seen for myself how Scottish companies such as Sea Energy Ltd are continuing to see success by signing major overseas deals. This is reassuring and I applaud its, and Scottish Enterprise’s, hard work to secure such contracts.

“However, the recent drop in the price of a barrel of crude oil, combined with the mismanagement of oil and gas fiscal policy by the UK Government, and other challenges facing the industry, pose a threat to a number of jobs.

“That’s why I have established the Energy Jobs Taskforce, to make sure that partners are working across the sector both to maintain jobs and to mitigate the potential impact of any losses.

“I have asked that the first meeting of the Taskforce to be held by the end of January, and I have no doubt that under the leadership of Lena Wilson, this will be positive for the industry.”

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