TV switchover will create 120 jobs, mainly in North

Mar 25 2009 by Andrew Mernin, The Journal

GREEN support services group Eaga has announced plans to create 120 largely North East jobs on the back of its work on the national switchover from an analogue to a digital TV signal.

In the past 12 months, the Newcastle company has helped almost 100,000 customers make the change to digital TV as part of its contract to manage the BBC’s Switchover Help Scheme.

In the process it has created 230 jobs and is now looking to recruit 120 people by next year as it prepares to follow on from its work in the Borders region with similar schemes in the Granada, Wales and West Country TV zones.

The Help Scheme was launched last year to help older and disabled people switch to a digital signal before the analogue switch-off, which is taking place over the next four years.

Eaga’s director for the Switchover Help Scheme, Andrew Major, said: “As well as highlighting the success of Eaga’s outsourcing business, winning this important contract is creating high quality jobs in testing economic times.

“Switchover is hugely important for UK broadcasting and ensuring the most vulnerable are included is crucial to this process.”

Eaga was set up in Newcastle in 1990 and today employs 4,500 people in the UK, Ireland and Canada.

It holds the contract for the £1.5bn Warm Front programme in England as part of the Government’s drive to eliminate fuel poverty.

Last week the company made a three-year, £75m funding deal with Barclays Bank to fuel its growth strategy.

The business renegotiated its financial agreement with the bank to realise expansion plans which will create 200 jobs in the region this year, in addition to the 120 announced yesterday.