Help is on hand for Southlanders starting out in the workforce or looking toward a career change.
The Southland Pop Up Job Shop, opened today (Monday 4th September) on Tay Street, is a place where job seekers can get free advice on careers, CVs, tips about what employers are looking for when recruiting new staff, and assistance with applying for actual vacancies.
While most vacancies are advertised online these days, the centre-city one stop job shop offers an old-fashioned jobs board to view vacancies at a glance.
Southland Labour Market Project Coordinator Therese Doyle said Southlanders might be surprised to learn that there are around 270 jobs available in Southland across all sectors and skill levels in any week.
“The labour market research undertaken by Venture Southland clearly indicates the need for initiatives such as this to ensure that those 250 vacancies are filled.
“The 2017 Southland Business Survey results showed while confidence had increased within the Southland business community, attraction of staff was listed as the top issue likely to affect 54% businesses in the next three years.
“We need to future proof the Southland economy by placing Southland job seekers into
employment as well as attracting workers from further afield.”
The Southland Regional Development Strategy goal of attracting 10,000 more residents to
Southland by 2025.’’
In conjunction with the Southland Pop Up Job Shop a centralised online jobs portal launched on southlandnz.com/work/job-search
This will link job seekers with job vacancy websites such as Trade
Me, Farm Source, Seek and major employers’ websites. The jobs portal will continue permanently after the pop up job shop closes and will be further developed by Venture Southland.
Ms Doyle says Venture and other agencies receive regular inquiries from people seeking to relocate to Southland from elsewhere provided they can find the right job opportunity.
“ It will also be an important tool to support the Southland Regional Development Strategy goal of attracting 10,000 more residents to Southland by 2025.’’
The pop up job shop provides a wonderful and exciting opportunity to focus on real jobs, real employers, and the opportunity to get advice on preparing job seekers for employment.
“As a region we need every job seeker to be engaged in work, education or training to maintain our regional productivity for the future.”
Southern Directionz managing director Dave McKissock says his company is already very pro-active in supporting members of the community to enter the job market through the specialised professional services they deliver and assisting Southland employers to meet their labour market needs, as well as having the expertise to help job seekers prepare CVS and interview skills.
Details:
The pop up job shop will be open
- 10am – 6pm Monday – Friday
- 10am – 2pm on Saturday 9 September.
The Southland Pop up Job Shop initiative is a collaboration between Venture Southland, Southern Directionz Career Consultants and the Southland Chamber of Commerce.