MINISTER for Work Nick Brown visited the region yesterday to see how seriously the North-East takes its shopping.

Mr Brown visited the MetroPeople, at the MetroCentre, in Gateshead, to see at first-hand how training in the retailing sector had been revolutionised by the training school, which is a JobCentre Plus initiative.

More than 60 people have already taken part in training and 47 have found work through MetroPeople in the four months it opened.

Specialist training at the centre is provided by Jigsaw Training, and covers areas such as health and safety, customer service, self-presentation, CV writing and interview skills.

The minister met some of the trainees who had benefited from training at MetroPeople.

He said: "I am very impressed. This is exactly the kind of initiative we want to support in the region through JobCentre Plus.

"It provides high quality training, dedicated to giving people the confidence and skills they need to get a job in the retail sector.

"We are also giving retail employers in the region what they have asked us for - candidates for jobs who have already had some good quality training and can show that they are ready to work."

He also took the opportunity to visit MetroJobs, which is JobCentre Plus's own "job shop", based in the MetroCentre. Mr Brown met the 2,000th person to find work thanks to the initiative - 40-year-old Nicola Armstrong, from Gateshead, who now works in hair salon Trade Secrets in the MetroCentre after being made redundant from Barclays Bank.