jad n rich

Aus employs a huge chunk of its workforce as casual labour, skilled people too, you can be highly qualified and been working for a company for years and still be casual .

Long before any world financial crisis, staff were disposed of with no notice/rights.

Casual means on call if and when and goodbye see ya later ..... I dont know if that point is really understood by peeps from the UK.

Of course with the current world situation it will get worse, but probably whats happened to you is nothing more than the way many employees in OZ get treated.

ozzieeagle

Spot on.... and Howard wanted to turn the whole bloody country that way.

Mind you this finanacial situation can only mean more casuals I guess.

I dont know if people migrating realise, but if you so no to a casual shift, even at 4 hours notice, you can find yourself bottom of the call in list.



I thought the situation was the same in the UK ? With the most available person getting the preferential treatment. I've been out of the situation over there for almost a generation now. Are Casuals really treated better in the UK ?

jad n rich

I think its the massive scale of it here that is the problem, its not unusual for say a hospital or govt dept such as queensland health (or state equivalent) to employ the majority of its staff on a casual basis, that is if and when they want you, no pay if they dont, and the see ya later dont need you anymore at an minutes notice. Look at Coles/Myer. Woolworth etc, most of their workforce is casual, yet they are some of the biggest employers in the country, then take the building industry very few people are on wages with holiday/sick pay etc, and if you are they take advantage of it, 40 hours pay for a 60 hour week.

I think by the amont of people who arrive THEN are shocked to find this out it may not be the same in the UK, but no doubt someone will say its worse

Of course being casual gets you a couple of extra bucks an hour, many might think thats not much compensation for no hols/sick pay etc and being at the mercy of your employers whim as to how many hours you get each week.

Being casual in this economic climate must put about half the population on a roulette wheel each week.

iamthecreaturefromuranus

Its better than it is here, but not by much. European law has enforced certain minimum standards... but they are pretty minimum!!

ozzieeagle

Even our Parttimers (thats permanent with holidays and sickpay) are suffering at Apost. Most of them have gone from at least 8 months of over 40 hours a week... down to 18 hours, and it looks like staying that way for quite a while.

Australia Bound

Similar to myself then. Did network/server support for a long time, now i'm focused solely on data/voice and firewalls. I have CCNP and firewall Specialist, and i'm a quarter way through the CCVP.

I'll be interested to see how you get on when you make the move.

philnorris

How do you recon on that when we will be living within walking distance to everything, you should never assume you know some ones circumstances. I have spent enough time in OZ to know I will not need a car until I get a job !

philnorris

The area I am in at the moment looks soley after VOIP, but to be honest I dont do much support any more, I am starting to get stuck with technical documentation, some thing that I dont really like.

I was hoping having CCNA, and a few other certs might get me back out in the field, fingers crossed.

Once I am settled back in to a decent role I can start studying properly again, I passed the security + exam a few months ago out of interest but not sure its some thing I want to continue in.

philnorris

AB, out of interest when you moving out to OZ, and where to,

Australia Bound

Well, two years ago it was Perth, then we canned the whole thing because of various factors.

Now we are re-visiting the idea, and have choose Melbourne becasue it seems abit more reasonable with regards to jobs for network engineers and house prices.

philnorris

Thats cool, looking on seek.com.au made me sure it was Perth I wanted to go to, plus having spent a lot of time there in the past and also knowing people there.

For the people that keep saying you shouldnt go to OZ as the job market is bad, they need to look at the UK, for 10 years I had my pick of the jobs at bloody good rates. That has all but gone in the last 18 months and now I cant find another contract .

I have seen more than enough both contract and permy jobs advertised in Perth for techies. The agencies I have spoken to and keep in touch with have all said (for my area) the job situation is not that bad.

chasmw

I'm applying for PM roles in Perth (from the UK). Am finding the lack of responses back extremely soul-destroying and worrying. Just about to book the rest of the families flights out there and am now very concerned about the job situation.
Has anyone managed to get a job through recruitment agents and seek.com whilst still in the UK? I'm not willing to resign from a well paid job and end up out of work (which is what most on the forum are advocating!). Quite willing to fly over and do a 2 week job search - good idea or not?

philnorris

You will find it extremely hard to get any luck doing this from the UK, I use a .com.au email address, and dont let them know I am actually in the UK. I simply enquire about jobs to see what is about, and how the market is etc.

I would say out of all the agencies I did let know I was in the UK about 60-70% got back to me saying 'we are interested in your skill set' give me a call when you arrive.

Everyone I have spoken to has said you need to wait until you get to OZ before applying for jobs over here, this is true in most cases I would say but not all.

I am going to leave it till I arrive before applying for any roles, well, I am going to have a month on holiday first.

Good Luck.

viviennef

When we came, I ended up not getting a job straight away and washing dogs on a saturday to make ends meet. Character building I say, being skint for a while. Gives us something to laugh about - I didnt see a $50 for 5 months and forgot what colour they were

One time my husband had to drink 5 pints of water to go to bed because he was starving and my pay didnt go in the bank.

potatoes and pasta are a great staple.

I had lots of money leaving the uk and had hell of a holiday didnt realise its harder to get a job dec - march
Vivienne

knockoff nige

I feel a little sick after reading this thread. Arrived in October, still job hunting. Money's running a bit thin now but thats my own fault. I turned down 2 jobs. Maybe I'll laugh at that one day. I turned down the second one because it looked like I was getting a second interview with another. Still waiting on hearing on that one. Have been told today that I'll hear on Friday if I get a second interview or not. Its frustrating as they know my situation and they could do this a lot faster if they thought about it for a second. The recruitment consultant doesnt want to push them.

Applied for a job in Coles today. Not expecting any word back considering all you folk looking for work as well lol.

Money goes quickly over here if you're not used to the dollar. Christmas was expensive even though I really enjoyed it.

My advice would be to hold off coming until you see a more positive thread about work over here. Otherwise, you are being careless.

You might see 70 odd jobs in your line of work. But you wont see the hundreds of applicants who are also applying for these roles. Applicants with local knowledge and who are prepared to work for much less than what they are worth.

What annoys me is Kevin rudd giving out handouts to Australians to get them spending themselves out of a possible recession. He's not making any effort to get companies to hire people though. They are allowed to take their time about filling positions because of slow business. Surely they have a responsibility to 'spend' their way out of this financial crisis too? Maybe even moreso than you and me. Especially the tossers who caused this crisis.