Following on from a Local Jobs and Skills Taskforce Meeting held in Warren recently, the Taskforce Chairperson Bronwyn Pearson was invited back to town to host an employer roundtable discussion about the challenges facing regional employers trying to fill job vacancies. 

Originally created by the federal government in response to the pandemic, the Work Force Australia Local Jobs Program Far West Orana (FWO) is designed to facilitate employment growth and job recovery in the region. The monthly taskforce meetings are held in different locations around the Far West Orana region, with invitees usually including larger employers and local government.   

“The taskforce works to identify key employment priorities, local labour needs and potential solutions," explained Ms Pearson, who said that it consists of representatives from local businesses, employment services providers, training providers, and other key stakeholders. 

Ms Pearson is a Far West Orana Employment Facilitator, one of fifty-one in place across the country. “The Local Jobs Program aims to increase the capacity of workforces at the regional level by driving solutions to local challenges, including supporting training and upskilling opportunities.”   

The Local Jobs Program FWO has already hosted similar employer round table discussions in Broken Hill and Narromine, both of which resulted in a series of workshops being held to focus on addressing issues raised by employers in those towns.  

With topics including, Building a High-Performing Team and Attracting Great Staff: Where and How to Find Them, the workshops aim to equip and upskill employers.   

“We’ve just held our final workshop of a series in Broken Hill and the program there has been very successful,” said Ms Pearson. “The Dubbo Business Chamber ran their sessions as a webinar, and we’ve just held our first face to face ‘lunch and learn’ session in Narromine.  

“What we aim to do is to facilitate and to connect people to resources to help them. It could be information or services; it could be funding. I liken what we do to the old-style telephone operators, connecting people to each other as they try to resolve unique employment challenges.” 

A feature of the round table sessions is open discussion between employers about their workforce challenges and barriers.

“Our aim is to be able work together on solutions to these identified issues and to help employers get the people they need,” Ms Pearson said. “There is a wide range of services and potential funding available to assist them, and we are keen to connect them with the best people to assist their business.”  

The round table attendees at Warren were asked to consider their top three employment or training challenges, as well as three opportunities. “We asked them to come prepared to talk about what they could do if they had the people they needed. The idea was to start to adequately address barriers and identify potential solutions.” 

The list of challenges raised by the business people in attendance at the forum were certainly not unique.   

One owner of a local business said that a lack of skilled and experienced staff was just the tip of the iceberg. “These days, I often don’t get any applicants at all. Or if I do, they are not suitable or they don’t stay. It’s almost impossible to get skilled people. Another big issue for us is attitude. I would rather a candidate with a good attitude who we can train, than someone with a degree of skill or experience who doesn’t want to be there.”  

Other employers have resorted to skilled migrant programs. “We have had to recruit mechanics from overseas,” said one business owner. “We would love to offer an apprenticeship to a local person, but nobody seems interested.”  Others cited the fact that a soon as an apprentice had qualified, they were off to bigger paying jobs. “We can’t compete with the mines in terms of money.” 

A representative from the local council said that they also have difficulty filling job vacancies. “We struggle to get people with the skills to manage projects or manage teams,” he said. “We have around fifteen vacancies across a range of roles and departments, some with no applications received at all. It’s not just recruitment that’s an issue, it’s retention of staff as well.” 

A mismatch between the level of skill or experience of an applicant and their expectations around renumeration and conditions was also flagged. “I’m not sure where that comes from,” said the business owner. “It could be demand or it could be that they want to price themselves out of the market for some reason.” 

A local youth worker said that whilst there were job seekers around, many lacked the confidence to apply for some of the vacant roles. “I had a job I advertised that had no pre-requisites however several suitable candidates that I proactively spoke to felt that they did not have the skills needed. We also have issues with labour support organisations who do not come to town frequently enough. We need to look at getting people skilled and into jobs.” 

An attendee representing a large employer who has work sites across NSW said that the issues were not unique to Warren. “These issues are everywhere, and they will continue if we don’t break the cycle.” 

Helping businesses help themselves

Ms Pearson told the group that the Local Jobs Program is focused on not only finding fit for purpose solutions for community issues but also on feeding back (to the government) what is happening on the ground. “Statistics only tell a portion of the story, but they don’t drill down to what is happening on the ground,” she said. “The reason people go into business is because they are good at delivering products and services. They are not necessarily across the HR side of things.   

“RDA Far West do a workforce survey every three years and what the data has revealed is that businesses need help with the people aspects.” 

The plan now is for a tailored series of lunch and learn sessions to be held in Warren. “I will be touching base with the employers who have attended as well as council and the Chamber of Commerce to talk about firstly, is there an appetite for workshops and secondly, what that might look like.   

“It’s a difficult time to be an employer. We want to connect employers to solutions that will help them to become that employer of choice.”