Surge in Geelong jobs
GEELONG region jobs have almost doubled in a year and are being buoyed by an almost five-fold increase in health jobs.
More than 1200 job advertisements were aggregated on the Geelong Careers website in February, up from 647 jobs in February last year.
More than 700 jobs have been advertised in hospitals, aged care facilities and other care settings this year across the City of Greater Geelong, Borough of Queenscliffe, and the Surf Coast, Golden Plains and
Colac Otway shires. More than 300 health jobs were advertised in February in the region, up from 74 in February last year.
Jobs in health, construction and trades, the government sector, retail, hospitality, charity and social work, advanced manufacturing and IT were all ahead of February 2020 totals.
Marianne Messer, who tracks jobs for Geelong Careers — part of the Geelong Region Local Learning and Employment Network — said the job growth was “unprecedented.”
Ms Messer said “1213 regional jobs were loaded onto
Geelong Careers in February, almost double the 647 jobs from February last year and a third more than February 2019”.
“This dramatic growth (overall) continues a trend started in September last year, when numbers of jobs in the region began to increase in unprecedented said.
“This growth reflects a series of social responses to COVID-19 as city dwellers recognise the real possibility of continuing to work from home, and for that home to be in a region where real estate, education and transportation costs are more affordable.”
Geelong Careers data shows the region’s fastest-growing sectors for jobs are IT, advanced manufacturing, health, government and construction.
Ms Messer said jobs in construction, government jobs, retail numbers,” she 09 and hospitality were all strong performers last month, indicating the region was recovering from the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Hospitality and retail are showing pleasing recovery from last year’s lockdown figures when shopping largely went online and travel was put on hold,” she said.
“It is not just Geelong that is doing well. Nationally our GDP growth continues to surge with 3.1 per cent quarteron-quarter growth, well ahead of economic predictions.”
AUTHORITIES have carried out works to repair a road at a busy level crossing after receiving several complaints from residents and Geelong council.
Bell Park resident Frank Sikora said he contacted state government authorities multiple times this year about the state of the road surface at a level crossing at Separation and Duoro streets.
Mr Sikora said the bitumen around the train tracks was sinking, making it dangerous and unsafe for cars to travel over the tracks.
He said he had been so frustrated by the lack of action that he went to extreme lengths to draw attention to the issue in February.
“I erected orange witches’ hats, parked my car and then painted on the road surface, ‘Fix this’,” Mr Sikora said.
City of Greater Geelong’s acting director of city services Shaun Broadbent said the city had forwarded several requests for improvements to Separation Street from members of the public to the relevant authorities in the past two months, before the repair work was completed.
Cr Eddy Kontelj said he also contacted relevant authorities about the matter.
When the Geelong Adveration
tiser contacted V/Line and the Australian Rail Track Corpor
(ARTC) on Friday, the authorities later confirmed repair work had been scheduled for the following day.
“The level crossing at Separation Street, North Geelong, consists of track managed by V/Line and the Australian Rail Track Corporation,” a spokesman said.
“Works on repairing the surface of the level crossing are scheduled for March 6 by an ARTC contractor.”
Workers could be seen completing repairs to the level crossing on Saturday morning.
Mr Sikora said he was pleased the issue had been addressed but he should not have had to go such lengths for repairs to be carried out.
“I’ve been at it for months and I got to the stage where I was so angry I had to paint it,” he said.
“It shouldn’t take that for it to be pursued.”
GEELONG schools are facing a decline in international student enrolments as Australia continues to enforce border closures due to COVID-19.
Greater Geelong attracts about 4000 international students each year, studying at 13 different secondary and tertiary institutions.
But the figures have declined since border closures were enforced.
Kardinia International College’s student population usually includes about 60 overseas students from countries including China, Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore.
But principal Catherine Lockhart said the school had 12 fewer students enrolled compared with 2020.
“International students who have enrolled for 2020 and 2021 have either had to cancel their enrolment and study in other countries without border closures or are deferring their Australian studies,” Mrs Lockhart said.
She said while able to provide international student places to local students, the college was keen for international education to resume “as quickly as possible”.
“Our community value international-mindedness, and international students are very important to the life of our college,” she said.
Australia’s international border closures were first introduced in response to the coronavirus pandemic about a year ago.
The federal government announced last week they will remain closed until at least June 17.
It is estimated the students and their visitors contribute about $128.2m a year to the economy, supporting 721 jobs, according to the City of Greater Geelong.
The Geelong College is home to 100 boarders from regional Australia and overseas.
Principal Peter Miller said the school had eight fewer international enrolments this year.
“The impact is not huge in terms of numbers but we greatly value the contribution of the international students here,” Dr Miller said.
“Although not large in number, they add a great deal to the life of the school and boarding because of the diversity in their background.”
He said the school had a few spare beds in boarding as a result, but domestic interest in boarding remained strong.
Enrolments at the college had increased by more than 2 per cent in 2021 due to growth in domestic students in primary and early secondary years, he said.
Geelong Grammar School currently provides for the education of students from more than 15 countries.
It did not respond to questions from the Geelong Advertiser.