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1. No-one would disagree that the Sunshine Coast and Queensland in general needs more jobs, but the scenario outlined above is only part of the picture.
   Agriculture and Tourism have relied for ever on a transient workforce - the backpacker.
   Backpackers love having some work to pay for their holiday; Employers love backpackers because they don't have to pay them all year round, and they go home, there is no cost to the employer for entitlements or sick pay, and the folk are on holiday anyway, so there's no holiday pay to factor in either.
   The problem for the Sunshine Coast is that the scope of backpacker employment has now widened to gobble up almost anything that can be done in a `Regional Postcode' for up to two years at that.
   The `shortage' of agricultural backpacker workers is in part caused by them being able to work in air-con and with their feet on carpeted office floors instead of toiling out in the heat and the flies.
   Anything from Bookkeeping, to Web Design/IT, to Sales, Call Centres to Medical Specialists and Lawyers has recently been up for grabs to backpackers on another local jobs site, and some of those `jobs' are listed as `volunteer', being work for accommodation at that.
   Where am I going with this?
   The problem all along isn't that manpower is in short supply, because there is an unofficial but believable unemployment/underemployment figure for the coast that varies between 20% and 25%.
   Don't forget that this figure doesn't even touch residents on 20 or 25 hours a week, or those who are hired on short contracts or `Traineeships' to get them off Newstart, only for them to find the work runs out as soon as their traineeship ends, and they're back to square one.
   A glance at Newstaff's own job listings on this site is also an eye-opener.
   Of fifteen jobs, four are mining jobs in mining areas, three `jobs' listed are really adverts for courses, and most of those listed as Sunshine Coast or Sunshine Coast wide, are in fact out of the region and involve FIFO.
   `Build it and they will come' is an admirable motto, but it was the policy that recently failed EIRE in its building boom - they built houses, thousands of them, that no-one could afford...
   It is also questionable whether training people for future employment demand is viable either; Remember the Y2K bug that had thousands paying megabucks for expensive IT courses so they could subsequently reap the rewards that would supposedly come from saving the business community from oblivion - Y2K was a damp squib and the only folk who profited were the companies who provided the courses.
   The only solution to the Coasts `boom or bust' economy is the development of a range of mid-weight, sustainable employment, based on employing local residents who will then recycle their wages through local businesses, and hence create a `wealth pool' and a skills base.
   I simply look forward to hearing what the various candidates at the next elections have to say about that proposal, and I for one will be casting my vote in the direction that I believe will provide local jobs for local folk, and hence benefit the long-term prosperity of local people rather than looking after the pension funds of various mining magnates.
   Tony Bryant
   1 of 116th January 2012, 5.47pm
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