ALL SET TO AID LOCALS
WESTERN Labour Hire has opened its first Townsville office in a bid to secure its place in supplying workers to the mining and construction industries.
The Cloncurry- based company specialises in indigenous employment and has contracts to supply labour to large- scale clients including Glencore, South 32 and Cudeco.
It has decided to open in Townsville to enable it to expand its workforce and supply labour for new mining opportunities and upcoming projects in North Queensland.
The business has leased an office on Thuringowa Drive in Kirwan, perfectly situated to cater to both indigenous and non- indigenous people looking for work in mining and construction.
Western Labour Hire director Dionne Connolly said the Townsville office was vital to accessing more workers and the company was now positioned well to supply labour to a huge variety of projects.
“To ensure we can remain as a value- add and have a very strong presence in the supply chain, we needed to access more people,” she said. “To engage as many of the unemployed and indigenous people as we could, this was the suburb ( Kirwan) and we’re one block from Willows ( Shopping Centre).
“We do have existing contracts that require large volumes of people.
“There are opportunities here right now within industries we operate in to start establishing relationships where local people will get the first preference for work.
“At the moment all our contracts are drive- in or fly- in but we’re trying to change that.”
The business prides itself on finding employees permanent positions.
It also plans to reinvest back into the community by using profits to address socio- economic barriers.
Ms Connolly said it wanted to acquire residential properties in Townsville to offer housing security to employees in the sometimes volatile labour hire market.
“Part of our strategic plan is to purchase commercial property to operate out of but also purchase residential property so our employees know they will have a roof over their heads,” she said. TONYT RAGGATT 4722 4439 CHRISTIECHR ANDERSON 4722 4741