Jobs tip for Dandy

By Nicole Williams
THE FEDERAL Budget may bring more jobs to Greater Dandenong.
That’s the message from the employment co-ordinator for south eastern Melbourne, Keith Pimblett, and the federal Labor MP for Isaacs, Mark Dreyfus, after the Labor Government’s 2011-2012 budget.
“The budget will deliver great outcomes to our local community, supporting existing jobs and investing in jobs for the future,” Mr Dreyfus said.
Mr Pimblett said the budget included a boost for jobs and apprentices that would be great for Dandenong.
“Given that we’re in a stage of declining unemployment, the budget reaches out to those most disadvantaged in our community and unfortunately Dandenong has a number in that area,” Mr Pimblett said.
Nationally, the budget committed to delivering 130,000 training places, $558 million for industry-based training initiatives as part of the National Workforce Development Fund, $1.75 million to reform vocational education and training (VET) and $481 million to support apprentices. Mr Dreyfus said Dandenong would benefit from the focus on investment in skills, training and job creation.
“This is a budget that recognises the need to continue investing in jobs and this will come as welcome news to Dandenong,’ Mr Dreyfus said.
“I am particularly excited to see how the investment in skills, training and jobs will benefit our local area.”
Mr Pimblett said the training initiatives and VET funding would be a “fantastic boost” for Dandenong. He said the industry-based training initiatives would be good for the Dandenong region, which had an increasing need to improve workforce skills.
“The funding of VET is a real boost for our region in that many of our children at school are engaged in VET programs.”
“A great number of those unemployed in the region don’t have those qualifications and this will be an incentive to get into long sustained work.”