WA has the best economy iand lowest unemployment rate in Australia, however if Melbourne is where you want to be in the long run (and why not, it is a great city, so move there as relocating states can be very expensive) however if Perth appeals, this is where the jobs are...

Would it work with one of you going for a month or two first to find the first job? That way living costs are reduced if the one in the UK is still working!

Just a thought possibly..

Just do it.....................
You wont regret.
Best place in the World.

Our experience is in the Automotive Industry, that's why we are thinking Melbourne .... Certainly our skills are transferable, but without experience in other industries we think it would be harder

It's an option we are definitely considering.

Perth sounds great, but we have no experience in the mining industry, all of our experience is in automotive.
Of course we can transfer our skills and use them in ANY industry, but we want to maximize our chances.

Oh dear! Not a good choice for Australia at present - Mitsubishi (Adelaide) closed down completely many years ago, Ford (Melbourne/Geelong) is cutting production and shedding jobs, Holden (GM, Adelaide) is doing reasonably well at present, but all the manufacturers rely heavily on government subsidies to keep going.

Australian manufacturers have traditionally built large (6 & 8 cylinder) cars and utes (pickups) and imported and rebadged anything smaller - problem is that large car sales are definitely becoming a smaller fraction of the market. Even the taxis which were traditionally either Falcons (Ford) or Commodores (Holden) are now moving to Passats and Prius.

Holden at Elizabeth (Adelaide) started making the 4 cyl Cruze about a year ago which will probably keep that factory going after Ford has moved offshore.

Toyota don't seem to be doing too badly at Altona (Melbourne) - because they aren't one of the Big Two they don't hit the headlines as much.

I have no idea what the employment prospects are for an engineer with 15 years experience, but overall it isn't the most thriving industry in Australia - bear that in mind.

Read this article - it seems to me to be a fairly accurate summary of the situation as seen a year or so ago, and it hasn't improved with age.

I think he meant it doesn't pay well so will only generate enough cash to feed the family beans on toast?

Good thing we all like beans and toast, even the kids

Toast is expensive here, what with the cost of bread and electricity.........

BB

Is toasting the bread with the sun an option???

The supermarkets here sell Heinz English Recipe baked beans, so you won't have to put up with the terrible Australian ones.

Hi r11

I would say keep plugging away at it. My husband has been applying for a lot of jobs and been told to contact the agents on arrival. Last week we got an offer on the house so were able to give an estimated arrival date He applied for a job last Monday, they rang him weds, telephone interview thurs and got offered the job this morning - subject to medicals, references, etc I am very happy to say the least - like you we have young children i was hoping we could secure a job before leaving. One thing i do think helped was the fact he applied directly with the company and not an agency, he dealt with their recruitment department and they have been extremely efficient

Good luck and dont give up trying

BB

You won't be toasting the bread with sun in Melbourne.....there isn't much sun here at the moment!!

Sun aside though we were lucky enough that I already had a job to come to in Melbourne however my boyfiend (steel engineer with a couple of years experience) found a job really quickly. He had an offer within a week of us arriving in Oz and although that job fell through he had another offer and was working within a month of arriving so he did pretty well!

It's difficult to say how you would get on, everyone is different but just thought I would share our experience. The safe option is for one of you to come out first as someone else has already suggested but you should definitely come!!

It's so much easier once you are out here though. Hayden had no luck before we came but rang and e-mailed the majority of companies in his field and got an interview and a job pretty quickly.

I would definitely recommed ringing the companies directly though - he had no luck with agencies.

Good luck!!

As parents, you can't leave things to chance. Do not make the move or sell your home until one of you has a job that you can survive on.