A NESTA-funded HR website for video game, TV and film companies is being set up to help encourage cross-industry job-swapping.
The networking site was announced at the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) event yesterday as part of its £450,000 ‘Raise the Game’ fund to increase innovation in entertainment sectors.
UK trade association The Independent Games Developers Association (Tiga) said it will use part of the funds to launch the social-networking jobs portal in January next year to combat a growing skills shortage among UK games developers.
To do so, the website will help developers find local staff, allow them to share resources between projects, and also “facilitate cross-collaboration between the games industry and other complementary industries, such as animation and television, through job swaps”.
“Skill shortages are a major problem for games developers, and therefore I am delighted we can provide a range of human resource solutions for the games industry, including the recruitment of staff, job sharing and job swapping,” said Richard Wilson, Tiga’s chief executive officer.
“We will help to ameliorate skill shortages, encourage knowledge transfer and facilitate innovation and so enhance the competitiveness of games businesses throughout the UK.”
The UK has the largest games industry in Europe, and fourth biggest industry in the world in terms of revenue generation. It employs more than 22,000 people.
