Hope on the horizon for Dubbo employers

The GoWest skills shortage initiative is starting to prove effective, with a Dubbo automotive service business keen to recruit redundant, though much-needed, workers from interstate.

Dubbo Autoglass is an example of a business that has plenty of customers but not enough skilled workers to provide the service required.

This means an inability to find and retain skilled tradesmen and apprentices in the workplace, and customers have to be knocked back is the business can't cope with demand. Dubbo Autoglass is needs auto-electricians ready and willing to join the team.

Their business provides window tinting, air-conditioning installation and repair, replacement of windscreens, side and rear glass, and central-locking and alarm kit installation.

However, they're just an example of the companies enduring a stressful skills shortage.

Graham Bennett, the business's proprietor, believes that all types of businesses in the Dubbo area are perpetually, and desperately, seeking the input of tradespeople.

He attributes this to the fact that there is a major decline in the number of young people taking on apprenticeships and feels that the plan by regional development board, GoWest, to employ former Mitsubishi workers from South Australia in the Orana region, near Dubbo, is "a fantastic idea, and they should be congratulated for coming up with it."

GoWest is currently writing to the job-seekers in South Australians who indicated an interest in taking up jobs in the west of NSW.

 The Mitsubishi Melbourne Production line will be close in the last week of March.