This morning, as I wandered round with my classic combo of tea and toast, I heard on the news about stadiums being taken apart and sold off in little bits after the London 2012 Olympics. Now this piqued my curiosity, as I had not exactly thought that they would keep everything (seeing how long it took them to find a good use for the 'Millennium Dome'..) but being that they keep going on about the number of permanent jobs will provide, I started to wonder how.
In 2009, Gordon Brown was quoted saying 'there will be 50,000 jobs permanently created as a result of the facilities the site will make possible for the future.' But surely, with the some of the sites themselves not being permanent, how can the jobs be?
On browsing the Olympics website, you can look for jobs involved just in the Opening and Closing Ceremonies or you can just look generally for work with LOCOG. There are, in fairness, a huge range of jobs that people can apply for but I can't help noting that many of them, such as 'diving technical operations manager' or 'sailing village manager' must obviously only last for the duration of the games. On the job description itself however, it says that the type of job is 'permanent'. There cannot be assured work as a 'diving technical operations manager' after the Olympics games has finished can there? I doubt they can guarantee further employment in each employee's specific field after everything has finished..
There seem to be mixed reactions towards the 2012 Games in general-on one hand, you have people commenting on articles about it saying that they couldn't care less or people tweeting about how much of a let down it's going to be, much like the Royal Wedding is being treated by some. On the other hand, London2012 has 62,210 followers on Twitter and there most tweets on the Olympics 'trend' seem to be positive. There are some that say these people are just 'Y generation' and are getting all excited because this is all new for them but I'm not convinced these positive opinions can be apportioned entirely to this. Perhaps people are willing, albeit cautiously, to see what the Olympics brings for England and will wait and see how it will affect our economy, our employment and our lives in general.
It's probably worth mentioning that there is also a huge need for volunteers at London 2012 as well-around 70,000 apparently and I very much doubt they will be left short. As said on the website, this is a 'once in a lifetime experience' and to be fair, whether good or bad, working at the London Olympic games is not going to happen again in my lifetime certainly-so they do have a valid point!
-Emily
Picture credits: London2012
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