The managing director of the region’s leading house building company is calling on bricklayers who may have quit the industry to pick up their trowels and return to the trade.
Andrew Fuller, Managing Director of Persimmon Homes Anglia, is currently looking to recruit more bricklayers to ensure that the company can keep pace with the increasing demand for new homes.
Mr Fuller told BBC Radio Norfolk’s Breakfast Show: “We are advertising for bricklayers to come and work for us and help us build more homes at a time when I’m pleased to say their rates of pay have improved.
“This is an industry where earnings are back where they were six years ago, before the recession, and are now beginning to rise well ahead of inflation.
“I would appeal to all tradesmen and women who may have left the industry during those difficult years to come back to it. We are at the start of another good 10 year cycle for the house building industry and we need their skills.”
The call for tradesmen comes in the wake of Persimmon’s recruitment drive to find 225 young people to join the business as trainees and apprentices. The company is searching for up to five new apprentices in brick-laying and joinery, two new trainee sales advisors and two graduate/trainee technical staff.
Mr Fuller was being interviewed on the BBC Radio Norfolk breakfast show during a debate about the recovery of the house building industry. Talking live from Persimmon’s development at Round House Park in Cringleford, he said that two thirds of the 75 home development had already been sold and that they were perhaps nine months ahead of schedule.
“Help to Buy, the government backed shared equity scheme, has given a real boost to the housing industry and we need more workmen on board to help us keep pace with demand.
“This is a brilliant opportunity for tradesmen to be part of a buoyant industry again, and to enjoy being valued for their skills and expertise. I would urge them get in touch with us here Persimmon as soon as possible.”
Next month, the company will begin recruiting for construction apprentices. For more information, visit www.persimmonhomes.com