guitarmonk90

Hi
Im new to the site so this has probably already been asked! Me and my boyfriend are looking into going to Queensland. We have never been before and are looking into working holiday visa's so we can check things out first. A lot of job sites state they are looking for people with non restricting visa's or residency and we are worried that we will be restricted in what jobs we can apply for. I work in admin and my boyfriend is a decorator. My boyfriends trade is on the sol and modl list, can anyone tell us what the current state of the construction industry is.
Any advice welcome,

Thanks, Ella

bcworld

Generally you will find that the construction industry is in a fairly big downturn at the moment......there are many, many recent migrants posting on here who have been looking for work in the trades for months and found nothing or have just done a few days work here and there. Many trades were last month removed from the Critical Skills List (CSL).

On a WHV you will be restricted in the jobs you can apply for as you can only work for each employer for 6 months - therefore you can only be employed in temporary or short term contract positions. Perhaps an upside is that there may be more of these types of positions available as companies postpone taking on permanent staff due to the state of the economy?? However many people are reporting huge competition for advertised jobs now i.e. 100s of applicants per job.

You should also check out if there are any training or licensing requirements in Qld which your boyfriend will have to meet in order to work on a site - bear in mind that if you decide to move onto another state that he may need to start over with these.

goldchoccycoin

The other thing to be aware of is that if you plan to apply for Permanent Residency, you need recent work experience (which is 12 months out of the last 24). I know 2 people who came over on the WHV and then had to go home and start their work experience again from scratch due to not finding 'skilled' work in Australia.

Just something to keep in mind.

bcworld

Yup, this is definitely something to bear in mind......I pretty much scuppered my chances of skilled migration by effectively wasting time on a WHV......fortunately I had other options.

guitarmonk90

Thanks for taking the time to reply.We appreciate all your posts and are taking all advice onboard.The skilled migration visa seems like such a long and costly process. We would hate to go through all that only to realise that oz is not the place for us.WHV seems like the obvious choice but if jobs may be tight at the moment we would need to appeal to as many employers as possible.I have a cousin in brisbane who works in recruitment and we are hoping that she may have a contact or two who can point us in the right direction.Were trying to research as much as we can but it seems that you can spend your life looking at information on the net.

Anymore advice and experiences welcome and thanks again

El