Just the job — for some
SKILLED j ob vacancies in Hobart have hit a four-year high with record hiring for health and welfare workers.
But low-skilled and entrylevel Tasmanian jobseekers are fighting it out with more applicants than anywhere in the country with an average of 12 workers applying for each position.
September’s Department of Jobs and Small Business Internet Vacancy Index by CommSec showed online skilled job advertisements in the state’s capital rose to their highest level in four years.
Tasmania recorded the strongest monthly and yearly percentage increases in online advertisements across the nation during September.
Launceston and the North East saw the country’s highest regional increase, up 25 per cent.
The state’s most sought after skills for September were professionals, technicians and trades workers and clerical and administrative employees.
The State Government has hailed it as a win, trumpeting jobs as their number one priority.
But the Opposition said changes in the Tasmanian economy and jobs market reinforced the need for greater investment in targeted skills programs, particularly in regional areas.
The Deloitte Access Economics Business Outlook released last week said an influx of skills via migration was helping fill the void as the state’s economy transitioned towards a skill-based one.
A recent Anglicare Australia Jobs Availability Snapshot 2018 found Tasmania had the worst ratio of jobseekers per unskilled job available, with 12 fighting it out compared to the national average of 4.26.
Treasurer Peter Gutwein said the Government’s ambitious infrastructure program meant a lot more tradies and skilled workers were needed.
“We are delivering targeted grants to encourage businesses to take on apprentices and trainees and we’re also subsiding the cost of training them,” he said.
Labor employment and training spokeswoman Anita Dow said there was an opportunity to decentralise health and social service training to rural areas where there was a requirement for a locally based workforce.