Page 265 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 12 May 1992
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In the discussions that I have had with the chairman of EPACT, Professor Fred Gruen, he has indicated to me that youth face particular labour market difficulties; again I think it is something to which Ms Szuty has alluded. For some young people, the problem is one of accessing a full-time position with very limited work experience, and that is compounded if the individual has a low level of qualifications or lacks confidence or skills in job seeking. There is a very real danger that young people who are caught in that "no job, no experience and therefore no job" cycle will end up joining the ranks of the long-term unemployed, and that is clearly a matter that we have to address.
I have been criticised by members opposite and Ms Szuty for seeking to get for those young people a higher level of experience and training. I stand by what I have done there. It is a fact that we were able to attract some $2.96m of Federal funding for the Jobskills program which will provide to 270 of the ACT's long-term unemployed people on-the-job experience and training and, quite importantly for them, a decent wage while they are doing it. I think that is a major achievement. Last week I was very happy to be able to make public the fact that we had offered contracts to five organisations charged with implementing the Jobskills program. Those organisations are the Community Company, the Work Resources Centre, Richmond Fellowship, Caloola Farm and Quest Solutions. They are called the brokers in this Jobskills program, and I am certain that everybody here would wish them all the very best in helping those 270 people to take on some additional work experience and some training.
I am sure that members would also be aware that the Government took a number of initiatives in relation to employment and training, many of them targeted at young people, and many of which were taken in the last budget. The focus has been, as I have said before, on equipping unemployed people with the skills and the experience that they need to compete successfully for jobs because we need to make a real difference in the job training opportunities that are available for unemployed people. The south side office of Jobline was one such initiative, and there are a number of others. For example, we have brought forward part of our capital works program. That will provide, we estimate, some 330 jobs. We have also ensured that there are a greater number of traineeships in the ACT Government Service. We have increased funding to Involve and the Streetlink program, to provide a greater employment focus. In addition, we introduced an entirely new venture and development assistance program to provide funds for training and employment programs that are targeted, again, at young people.
I have said, and I have been quoted as saying, that I believe that jobs growth must occur in the private sector. So, in addition to those targeted labour market programs, I would like to point to a number of initiatives that we have taken in order to develop the private sector in the ACT. Mr De Domenico, I think, referred to the address that I gave in Business Week last year, in which I outlined nine initiatives that I would be taking in order to assist business in the ACT. Some of those initiatives, Madam Speaker, have already been touched on. One of them was to establish the Economic Priorities Advisory Committee. That has been done, and it has been charged first and foremost with looking at youth unemployment.
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