Plenty of chatter about this on the wire today, but I thought it worth another mention in case you haven't seen it...

Today, Microsoft in the UK launched a fairly ambitious campaign called 'Britain Works' to help 500,000 people into work by 2012. There's a bunch of ways we'll be looking to do that:
  • A new national IT apprenticeship - with 700 new Apprenticeships by the end of this year and 3,000 by 2012.
  • Millions of pounds of training vouchers for targeted skills training.
  • A job matching service called MSEmploy (matching vacancies with skilled applicants).
  • Partnering with NGOs.
  • Continuing to deliver on programmes that support start-ups such as BizSpark.
If you're interested in the detail, take a look at the Britain Works site and you can even call the helpline on 0800 111 4341.

I feel pretty good about this particular effort from my employer. Nice work gang.