By CAMERON LUCADOU-WELLS
JOBS in Greater Dandenong are growing scarcer and it’s getting tougher to snare even an entry-level job, a local recruiter says.
In June, Dandenong’s unemployment rate rose to 12 per cent, up from 11.4 a year earlier. Unemployment in other parts of Greater Dandenong dropped from 6.8 to 6.1 per cent in the same period.
The most recent census figures show that while manufacturing is still the largest employer of Greater Dandenong residents, jobs in the sector dropped from almost 14,500 to fewer than 12,400 in the decade to 2011.
“Manufacturing employers are shifting production overseas nearly every day,” Thao Le, manager of Springvale recruiting firm Direct Recruitment, said.
In their place, distributors were storing imports, which had caused a lift in warehousing, packing and forklift jobs.
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Entry-level jobs were now most likely to be found as warehouse packers, which was “very competitive” — and even these positions required more computer and data-entry skills.
A former warehouse manager with a wife and two children — who asked not to be named — told the Journal he had been unable to find work since being made redundant 12 months ago.
“For the first month, I thought this will be easy. Now it’s getting a bit depressing.”
He believes his age (42) and experience have stopped him from snaring a base-level warehousing job. “If you’re young, they can train you but if you’re 36-40, there’s a big question about whether you’re going to get it. They don’t think you want to go back to entry level.”
Ms Le said even getting unskilled work such as cleaning and packing now required qualifications. “It used to be easy to get these as a fill-the-gap job. Now employers want to know, ‘how long are you going to give us?’. It’s now more like a career.”
The census statistics showed jobs have increased overall, particularly in construction, retail, health care, accommodation and food services.
But Ms Le said that in recent months, the retail jobs market — which had surged over the past five years — was now shrinking because of online shopping.
On the upside, there were more jobs in aged and personal care, cleaning and call centres, she said. “Major companies, such as energy companies, Telstra, Qantas, are bringing back local call-centre services because people have had it with overseas call centres.”
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