If you flick through back copies of The Impartial Reporter over the past two decades, the only stories reporting news of jobs in their hundreds are those telling of factory closures through the years.

Some of our urban landscapes are scarred by these now dilapidated former centres of industry, others have been reinvented for for use by other business or razed to the ground. But there have been very few announcements about jobs in this part of the world, up until now, that have gone any distance to reverse those losses when manufacturing moved east more than a decade ago.

A French-owned contact centre group Teleperformance has announced plans to create an additional 800 jobs in Enniskillen. The scale of proposed recruitment, from more than 200 employees to more than 1,000 is truly significant.

Teleperformance also has centres in Newry and Bangor, now manages and operates the former Liberty Insurance Enniskillen contact centre.

The firm took over the contract in July, when Liberty Insurance withdrew from the personal motor insurance market in Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

This is the largest investment outside Belfast in 12 years.

As part of the plans, the South West College’s Enniskillen campus will deliver Teleperformance Customer Service Academies from early next year. Supported by the Department of Employment and Learning, these will ensure that the training and skills development needs of Teleperformance staff are met.

This is a global firm with 185,000 employees worldwide, with not only centres across England and Scotland, but beyond. There are thus being opportunities created on our very doorstep for those who may have the ambition to take their career further.

Stormont Finance Minister Arlene Foster and her Executive colleague, Employment and Learning Minister Stephen Farry, were in Enniskillen last week to jointly announce the massive jobs boost for Fermanagh. Mrs Foster described the announcement as the result of “working together” across government. That is also good to see -- working together to deliver much-needed investment on the ground.

Fermanagh has been on the back foot for so long. An anouncement like this one was well overdue but very, very welcome.