 With much needed and refreshing candour former Lord Mayor and NSW State Minister for just about everything David Campbell held nothing back when addressing business leaders at the local forum on youth unemployment.
Brought together for a briefing by IRIS on the results of their 12 month research many attendees were stunned when the minister suggested in no uncertain terms that it was time for the local business chamber and others to step up and do something concrete about the Illawarra’s entrenched youth unemployment problems.
The Minister went on to outline the steps the Iemma government had made in Payroll Tax and other tax reforms which he said were in line with policy being espoused by local peak employer body the Illawarra Business Chamber (mouth piece for North Sydney based Australian Business Ltd) over a number of years as being the underlying cause of the Illawarra’s lingering crisis.
With the undisputed highest youth unemployment figures in the country the Illawarra now has a more informed knowledge of the problem, which is helpful in itself, however as David Campbell rightly told the gathering, without concrete action … it’s all talk … something the area has done for too long.
It must be said the criticism was not well received by most attendees who considered the rebuke was both uncalled for and unhelpful … but was it?
For starters, it certainly signalled both the Minister and the Government’s utter frustration with the malaise that has enveloped the region since the early 1980s.
And it reinforced the fact that millions have been poured into various publicly sponsored projects by successive state and federal governments over the past two decades but tangible results (in employment growth terms) have been disappointingly thin on the ground.
Many outsiders would say the Illawarra has developed a cargo cult mentality and sees government grants as the only source of jobs growth … and based on our sorry record it is hard to counter this argument.
But what have we been doing wrong when so many people say we all want the same thing – which lets face it boils down to jobs for our own children?
WollongongOnline has identified youth unemployment as the major social concern facing the region for at least five years but until the forum the worrying issue was usually confined to just a line in many organisations Strategic Plans along with all the other motherhood issues like the need for community engagement i.e. no single person or organisation took any real responsibility.
If the area really wants something to happen they must create a body or alliance of existing interests such as the Illawarra Business Chamber, the South Coast Labour Council, the Illawarra Regional Development Board and the Illawarra Area Consultative Committee (in fact any groups with an interest in economic and community growth in the Illawarra - and which could also be the present forum) with the express purpose of creating job opportunities.
Now before you go saying we’ve all been trying to do that - ask yourself these questions:
Name a single person you know of who could help you find a job for a youngster?
Tell me one person who would stand to lose their job or suffer financially if more jobs weren’t found?
Who would you go to if it was necessary to cut some red tape to create a job for a young person in a large locally based institution?
No, these aren’t trick questions.
There is in fact an answer and it’s one that I believe is largely responsible for the complete lack of jobs growth we have suffered to date.
But first consider this – courtesy of The Council of Small Business of Australia Ltd websiteThere are more than 1.88 million small businesses in Australia
Small businesses employ 3.6 million people country-wide.
The group is capitalised at $4.3 trillion - four times the Australian stock exchange
Translating this to the Illawarra we are talking about approximately 36,000 local employees!
And as far as I am aware the vast majority, if not all monies, spent by various governments on trying to create youth employment have been directed to either big business or non-profit organizations of some kind.
You only have to scan the business pages of any newspaper to see ‘big’ business these days is all about shedding jobs not creating them. And with Westpac merging with St George and or own AHM looking to follow in the path of City Coast (or is it CUA) we are in fact staring at more job losses, not increases, in the not too distant future.
Clearly the driver for jobs growth is the small business sector (the WCC’s own recently retired Economic Adviser Bob Doyle acknowledged as much after a fact finding mission to Queensland several years ago) and it gets virtually no help at all when it comes to creating extra jobs!
In fact based on personal experience I would suggest small business is actively discouraged from seeking government funding or assistance of any kind when it comes to taking on extra young workers.
My recommendation is the region sets up a Jobs Taskforce as a matter of urgency.
It may need some staff to handle administrative matters but it should largely be driven by a high profile Commissioner who would have personal responsibility for creating jobs – a sort of jobs ombudsman.
He should be empowered to approach government departments and larger organisations to cut red tape and to release the hundreds of jobs that exist but in the past have always been placed in the ‘too hard’ basket.
To guage the extent of this opportunity I have personal involvement with a project that would create over a dozen local jobs for young people – does not require government funding or direct assistance of any kind – but does need help cutting through institutional red tape to make happen.
If an organisation the size of YourOnlineCommunity (only 5 office staff) has the potential to develop this number of jobs imagine what could be created by the other 18,000 or so small businesses in our region – with a little help from someone in high places?
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