A HUDDERSFIELD textile company has been inundated with prospective apprentices – and many of them are from middle-aged jobhunters.

On Friday, The Examiner highlighted Paragon Textiles owner Gordon Hawley’s fruitless search for two apprentice pattern weavers. He has been looking for one to start immediately and a second in six months’ time.

Since then, the firm’s phone has been almost constantly engaged with people ringing up about the trainee jobs.

To Mr Hawley’s surprise, many of the prospective applicants are older people looking for work.

“There has been an excellent response thanks to the Examiner article,’’ he said. “We have been inundated with calls from people who are interested in the jobs.

“Surprisingly, the calls have come from people of all ages. We have had quite a lot from middle-aged people.”

While Mr Hawley does not rule out the possibility of taking on an older apprentice, he believes it would be “very difficult.”

He says that Paragon Textiles, based at St John’s Road, cannot afford to pay a qualified person’s wage to an apprentice pattern weaver – whether young or old.

Secondly, he believes it is unlikely that an older worker could support a family on an apprentice’s wages.

“I totally sympathise with middle-aged people looking for work,’’ he added. “But it requires a great deal of time and money to retrain an older person from scratch. It is a five-year process.

“The textile industry really needs school leavers because of the complexity and the length of time to train a skilled operative.

“There is more than just Paragon Textiles looking for good young people. So, hopefully, this may have a knock-on effect for other textile employers.”

Calderdale and Kirklees Careers have been in touch with Mr Hawley since the Examiner story and have three young men aged 16 to 19 who are all interested in applying the position of apprentice pattern weaver. They are putting all three forward for interview.

All other applicants are being dealt with by Huddersfield’s Textile Centre of Excellence in Red Doles Lane.

Taylor and Lodge, one of Huddersfield’s oldest textile companies, has also had a problem recruiting young workers.

They too advertised without success for an apprentice pattern weaver. In the end, they employed an older worker who already had textile experience. They are currently re-training him in pattern weaving.

Taylor and Lodge is, however, looking to recruit a second apprentice pattern weaver as one of their experienced staff is approaching retirement.