TWO major jobsfairs are being held in Brighton to highlight the large number of vacancies in the city.

Employers are looking for staff in a variety of roles.

Steve Benwell is Work Coach Team Leader for the Department for Work and Pensions based in Brighton.

He said: “Overall, there are lots of jobs available across a wide range of sectors, though there aren’t any really major recruitment drives going on.

“For example, Black Lion Marketing has a number of sales roles available, where experience is not required.

“The Royal Sussex County Hospital is recruiting for both full-time and part-time cleaners and catering assistants.

“Network Rail has technician and co-ordinator vacancies, and Brighton and Hove Buses are also recruiting.”

The jobs fairs are on Friday at the Jury’s Inn, Waterfront Hotel, and Brighton Jobcentre on March 20.

Mr Bensell said: “Although we don’t have a finalised list of employers attending yet, we can guarantee there will be a wide range of vacancies available.

“For for example, at the last Brighton Jobcentre jobsfair in February, there were 14 different employers recruiting.

“These ranged from hospitality jobs with Mitchells and Butler, retail with Timpsons, construction vacancies with Rullion, jobs with Body Shop, Brighton General Hospital, Brighton and Hove Council, and more besides.

“Hundreds of jobseekers attended what was our busiest event so far.”

There are 5,250 people on the claimant count in Brighton, of which 802 are aged 18-24.

Both of those figures are down 31 per cent and 42 per cent on five years ago.

Compared with a year ago, the overall claimant count has risen by a total of 612, or 13 per cent.

This is partly due to the way the figures are counted.

The introduction of universal credit means those who would have previously just received housing benefit support due to earnings are now being counted.

There are some other groups also now counted which weren’t previously.

The employment rate for Brighton and Hove is 76.9 per cent.

That compares favourably with the 75.8 per cent UK rate, but is below that of 78.97 per cent for the south-east.

Youth unemployment continues to fall below both the national and south-east averages, with 1.9 per cent of the 18-24 resident population on the claimant count.

This compares with 3.2 per cent for the UK and 2.1 per cent for the South East.