26/07/2013

Minister Calls On British Firms To Hire Locally

A Conservative minister has said that while British firms are not legally obliged they should have a "social duty" to hire British workers.

Matthew Hancock, who is in charge of skills policy for the Department for Business, urged companies to recruit locally when he appeared on BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

On the show he said: "The responsibility of employers is to the communities they live in as well as to making a pure profit.

"This is about a change of culture. I am arguing that it is companies' social responsibility, their social duty, to look at employing locally first."

In 2007, former prime minister Gordon Brown was criticised for a statement calling for "British jobs for British people".

(MH/CD)

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