Engineering jobs head to Wales - graduate jobs

Graduate engineers could be set to benefit from the news that hundreds of new hi-tech green energy jobs will be heading to North Wales.

As ministers said the region's manufacturing sector could help lift Britain out of the recession, two major companies revealed plans to create 160 jobs each.

Corus Colors in Shotton plans to generate solar power with a technology that mimics the way plants harness the power of the sun like photosynthesis.

The firm requires a workforce to mass produce superthin solar panels that can be glued on steel panels - allowing any building to generate its own electricity.

Deputy first minister Ieuan Wyn Jones says the multi-million pound projects could help place North Wales at the centre of national economic recovery and at the forefront of hi-tech manufacturing worldwide.

UPM has invested £17 million in its site, also in Shotton, - with £1.7 million coming from the Assembly Government's single investment fund.

The facility sorts plastic bottles, cardboard, newspapers and metals, providing 20% of the recovered paper used as raw material in the mill's paper production.

It will create up to 160 jobs when it is up and running.