Forum seeks to place Douglas job seekers in local tourism and hospitality vacancies
AVAILABLE WORK
A forum in Port Douglas has linked employers needing to fill at least 10 job vacancies in tourism and hospitality with locally based job seekers.
Chefs and drivers as well as care workers are among the job vacancies which organisers of the forum hope will be taken up in coming weeks.
As a direct result of the meeting, at least two job seekers are likely to be employed already.
The event was focused on those seeking work who are already living in the local area.
Ms Brennan said vacancies in the Port Douglas area include a number of skilled and unskilled roles, “but those that we see regularly include chefs – which is partly due to the challenge of attracting skilled labour with our current housing crisis – drivers: truck, bus and boat, and care workers,” she said.
Local Jobs Forum latest of many
It is the eighth forum of its type to be organised by the Local Jobs Program over the past 16 months.
Ms Brennan said some interesting information from employers was heard at the forum about worker support.
“Some were supporting accommodation, some were providing education support including university entrance assistance for families,” she said.
“The employers that came today were really positively looking at what they can do to make changes in their recruitment to attract people.”
Unsurprisingly the issue of accommodation shortages for skilled workers was one of the key issues raised at Wednesday’s meeting.
Possible worker transport subsidy to be explored
Employers came up with a “really good idea” which Ms Brennan said she will be following up before the next tourism season early next year – negotiating with private transport services who come up from Cairns Airport to Douglas – to possibly fill vacant seats on buses with hospitality and tourism workers.
“We’ll do a test project with a subsidy involved to see if we can get people interested and using it.
“That’s the thing that will attract government support – if we can show locally that there is a not only a need because we say there’s a need, but we can prove a need for something like this, then we have an opportunity to advocate for something more sustainable.”