125 jobs '˜fantastic news for Derry' - Mayor

Mayor McHugh was speaking after the Department for Communities (DfC) with Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) for Derry confirmed the £7m contract yesterday.

The new staff will be delivering universal credit services to claimants in Britain and will be based at the Lisahally Service Centre.

Mayor McHugh said: “This is fantastic news for Derry and the wider North West region and will be a huge boost to the local economy.

“I am confident that while some of the jobs will be filled through internal recruitment that the vast majority of them will be new posts for the city and region.

“These are high quality jobs that reflect the quality of our city’s offering in terms of skills base and creates new jobs and opportunities for all our citizens, in particular our large and growing population of well educated young people.”

Foyle Sinn Fein MP Elisha McCallion said the jobs boost comes just after the new Shipquay Hotel opens in the city centre and the retail company ‘The Range’ opened on the Buncrana Road creating up to 80 jobs.

“In the current economic climate brought by continued Tory austerity, every new job brought to our city is valued. It’s very important that we attract more jobs into this region and I will continue to work to do that,” she said.

A spokesperson for the Department for Communities said yesterday: “This is good news for DfC and for Northern Ireland, bringing to 594 the number of new jobs secured by the Department over the past year to deliver DWP services.

“This third major contract for DfC is testament to the continued confidence DWP has in our capacity to provide high quality services for customers in Great Britain.”

The workforce is expected to be fully in place by the end of 2017, the spokesman added.