bwhelan

Anyone else finding it difficult to get a job in brisbane? i must have applied for about 20 labour jobs without response and im a fully qualified sparks back home also with hard labour experience. Starting to get very disheartened as my wife is also a qualified childcare worker with blue card (she got 3days casual) but has applied for a load more than me and her only response was the 3days. Are they only hiring Aussie or are we looking in the wrong places? would love to hear other people's experiences.

chris955

The work situation in Brisbane isnt great, most sectors have slowed considerably and with Campbell Newman adding 100's of public sector workers to the dole queue it is only going to get worse. Just keep plugging away.

DadAgain

You missed a few zeros! 100's wouldn't make much impact at all, the true impact is more likely to be 10,000s.

He's certainly kicked out a few thousand directly but by time you include indirect effect of government shut-downs the numbers would be much higher. A lot of temporary contractors, consultants and casuals no longer have government jobs that they did a month or so ago and they aren't included in the official statistics of 'sackings & redundancies' because they were never full time employees in the first place. IT consultancies in Brisbane for example are all shedding staff at a rate of knots and flooding the employment market - they weren't officially 'government jobs' but they are jobs that have been lost due to government cuts.

chris955

Actually yes after i posted 100's i was thinking that is probably way off the mark.

sign

met a bloke in a bar the other day, i ain't no sparky, but he was, we were chattin, this company came up, something about maintenace on a unit he knew of, told me about jobs, hiring, not sure why, anyway, its a steer for yeh,good luck.

http://www.prestigepower.com.au/pres...cian-jobs.html

derren7

Hi there,
I'm a sparks and I've been in Brisbane for about 8 months now. I sent my CV off to as many electrical contractors as I could, even if they weren't advertising. Consequently, 1 company took me on and I'm close to completing my gap training.
Keep throwing the stones mate, one of them is bound to hit the target.
I know how frustrating is. I must have applied for around a hundred jobs in a 3 month time frame.
Also, I would advise following up with a phone call to make yourself appear keen and noticed. They'll probably tell you that they don't contact you (and they don't) if your unsuccessful or the application is still being processed.
Also, bear in mind that they are very slow at processing applications here.
Best of luck.
Regards Derren

Pollyana

The last estimate I heard internally was 6,000 gone so far, up to 25,000 of us will go either before or as a result of the budget, and thats only the permanent staff. Its impossible to put a figure on temporary/contract workers who simply didn't get their contracts renewed....and then as already mentioned you have the other jobs affected by the government cuts. I know that already its easier to get a seat on the train in the morning, its not going to improve after the budget either......

Certainly for the OPs wife I would say this is the worst time ever to be trying to get that kind of job in Brisbane - or even in Queensland. I wish her luck

brissybee

Don't take it personally (or pom-ally) that you can't get a job in Brisbane at the moment. As others have said, it's a difficult job market right now.

There are some big electrical firms around (if you haven't already, you could check yellow pages) and there are agencies which supply to construction firms if that's something you could do. I think Hallis is one such agency.

People who get work (and they can get a bit) through agencies often find they have a good foot in the door if a permanent position comes up.

Alternatively, if you're licenced and just wanting to put food on the table, you could try an ad in your local paper for basic domestic work.

Just rambling thoughts, but maybe something useful. All the best.

bwhelan

Thank you everyone for your information and support ill just have to plug away and hound them. I suppose I thought it was gonna be handy enough before i came over but in reality its always hard to get work. anyway thanks again something will turn up

Alfresco

Yeah, good luck. It took me ages too!