saville

I knew this question has been asked before but is the job situation for sparks showing green shoots of improvement or am i dreaming? The reason i am asking this question is because we were prepared to stay put in the uk and ride out the storm where he had good job security, that was until today after Oh was told his hours are being cut and then if things don't improve after a month will only work 4 day week, the dreaded R word was also mentioned, we are now in a situation where we have sold house and moving into rented which is going to cost more than mortgage and less wages coming in. We don't know whether to accept voluntary redundancy and bite the bullet and hopefully get a job in OZ or wait here for situation to possibly get worse, I think we will wait until July then kids will have finished school and then if he goes for redundancy should hopefully be given 3 months notice. Any valuable input would be greatly appreciated.

daviec33

Hi, I'm not in Australia so can't really comment on what's happening over there.

The only thing I would ask is does your OH have his sparkys license sorted out for Australia?

I've previously been in Aus (2001) for a year and didn't have an aussie sparky license and found it extremely difficult to find work without one.

Employers are loath to employ unlicensed sparks and with the current situation that prevails around the world regarding employment I would imagine a current aussie sparky ticket is the bare minimum needed to get a start with any companies over there.

Some of the guys such as sparky stu and steve o that are on here regular will probably be able to advise you better as to the current job market in Aus.

Either way I hope things pick up and you manage to ride out the recession, be it in Aus or UK.

Times are pretty tough everywhere from what I hear!.

Sorry I can't be of more help

saville

Thanks for the reply no he doesn't have his licence but he does have a tra and permanent 136 visa, when we move into rented he is sending away to peers to get correspondence course and is also going to do his artc as he knows someone with an oz address, he would take his licence soon after arriving in adelaide as i understand from what people say is the best place to go to to get licence so he is hopeful of getting licence soon after landing.

daviec33

This is exactly the route i took.

You can do the course via distance learning and they will send the coursework out to you in the UK and make an early start, which would mean when you land all he has to do is sit the exam (2 days) then in two weeks his license would appear through the post!.

This might save you a bit of time, the sooner you have a license the quicker you can look for work!

Possibly worth considering?

Edit - Forgot to add, you can still apply for an ARTC in the UK also, they just won't send it to you in UK, they will hold it until you arrive if you don't have an aussie address to post to!. Again this might save you a little time!.

There may even be a helpful person or two on here who might let you "borrow" their address to use!.

saville

Thanks for your help. What are you doing now, have you got your visa yet, have you got a house to sell if so hopefully things are starting to pick up. We had ou house up for just over a year and we did lose quite a bit on our equity. I wish you all the best whatever you are doing.

daviec33

Not a problem

Loads of people on this forum helped me in the past so i'm always happy to help where i can.

I gained my visa in sept '06, validated in feb '07, ARTC in Nov '08, went over for two weeks this year to Adelaide to sit the peer exam and get my license.

I was planning on moving out this year in June.

I'm currently renting my own place and staying in a rental myself in the UK.

Seriously considering putting the move on hold this year due to the whole recession/financial crisis, I have until Sept 2011 till visa expires and I'm sure like a lot of people I've poured a lot of time and effort to get what little savings I have so I can't afford to be out of work for a long time when i land.

Right now I'm thinking put it all on hold till March next year and see how things look then!.

It's a bugger as I was dead set on going this year but them's the breaks!

Fortunately I'm ok for the time being work wise here in the UK (although was on a reduced hourly week up until 3 weeks ago) that lasted 3 months. Sometimes it's better the devil you know!.

If I was to be redundant though I'd just book a flight and leave as theirs little chance of picking up work were I am at the moment (Scotland).

Apologies for the life story!

Decisions, Decisions eh? :-p

Good Luck

saville

Just looking back at other forums and looked up ARTC interview and some of the questions they ask now OH is bit panicky as some of the questions on motors and he says that he's not all that up on these questions, is it hard to pass the artc and what do you think of questions they ask.
We validated visa in Feb this year but because we couldn't afford the validation with all 5 kids we are sponsoring them when house sale goes through our only problem is that we need to sponsor eldest son before he is 18 which is June 2010. So we havn't got a lot of time on our side, also we would like to be out there before daughter starts studying gcse which is also next year and our 10 year old son goes up to high school in september, and eldest son due to start new 2 year college course in ICT. All in all quite an important time for children so we would've liked to go Sept anyway but it was the job security here which was stopping us and the recession out their which was stopping us so this might be gods way of telling us something and that is to bite the bullet and go. Sorry to go on

daviec33

The ARTC does not always require a test or interview.

I received mine purely on the basis of my paper application and was not required to do any interviews or tests and quite a few other people on here have not had to do them.

The trick seems to be to "flood" them with information!. Take your time with the application and be extremely detailed.

This is extremely important with regards to the references, the best thing to do I found was to basically type up the reference yourself then go round your employers and get them to print it on company headed paper with the bosses signature at the bottom!. They like this approach as it saves them the hassle of writing it from scratch!.

The important thing to note is that TRA are not looking for things like "good attendance", "good worker" etc.

They want specific details about the type of work your OH has done and the materials/equipment he has used.

Try and cover as much as you can with examples, from planning a job, choosing materials, installing materials, tools used, equipment worked on, etc, etc.

If you PM me your email address I will send you a copy of the references I used but please don't copy them verbatim, alter them to suit your OH or tailor them to fit his job!.

I think my application was round about 30 pages in total by the time i was finished!!! (this included certified copies of certificates etc).

It's even worth taking some pictures of the type of work he does at the various stages and typing some explanatory notes to go along with them.

The more detail and info the better! (and the less chance of getting pulled in for a trade test or interview!!)

saville

Once again many thanks for your helpful input I have sent you a pm with my email address, by the way what part of Scotland you from? I used to live there years ago and have brother in the borders.

stu:0

I dont want to sound negative or anything and i can really only speak for North Queensland but things seem to be slowley getting worse and word is it will only get worse over the next 12 months minimum.
Biggest problem is all the mines shutting and tradies heading back to there own towns. Was talking to one of the instrumentation lads at work and he was say a Nickle plant in townsville may be shutting and apparentlly there will be 100's of sparks from that one plant alone out of work. This is just one story but you get the picture of what is going on. Obviously this is for the industrial side of things but it is the same for domestic stuff. House have slowed down to nothing and companys have layed off lads down to rock bottom minimum staff.
Nearly 2 years iv been here and back then there would be 15-20 jobs in the paper a week for sparks now none. Companys were happy if you would go work for them. I was in work the day i got off the plane with no licence at all.

Those days will return its just when??

Sorry to sound a little negative but best to be truthfull with how things are here. Id hate to arrive here thinking it was all rosey and find out it really isnt.


Stu

saville

Thanks for your reply will take on board what you said, after talking to OH last night even though the R word was mentioned his boss really doesn't want to take such drastic action yet and is going to see what happens in July, in the mean time he will look else where. If however the situation doesn't improve, he goes down to a 4 day week and he can't find anything else I think he will ask for redundancy and make the move. It is just a waiting game now to see if things improve.
Never know the job situation might make a miraculous turn around, I know i'm probably dreaming.
Anyway many thanks