Venture Southland's Pop Up Job Shop hopes to address Southland employment issues

Wednesday, 1 May 2019

Recent SIT graduate Lois Liao checking out the jobs on offer with the assistance from Jo Winters of Front Line at the Pop Up Job Shop in Invercargill.

The employment rate in Southland has dropped nearly five per cent in the last year, the highest drop in the country.

The Statistics New Zealand labour market quarterly report shows Southland's employment rate has dropped by 4.2 per cent to 68.7 per cent.

However, Venture Southland has collaborated with the likes Workbridge, Ministry of Social Development, Southern Directionz and Careerforce to open the Pop Up Job Shop for the third year in an attempt to address Southland's employment issues.

The pop-up shop is a physical space where jobs are listed by industries, along with seminars and workshops that help people become more confident in finding employment.

* Expansion a success for pop up job store

* Southland job shop popping up again**

Venture Southland pop-up shop co-organiser Allison Beckham said there were 450 jobs listed and expected 550 to be listed by the end of the week.

Beckham said the unemployment statistics was very hard to believe but did know the youth unemployment was dropping in Southland, which she believed was caused by three reasons.

'One, we are trying to help, two, theres a buoyant economy and three, we have a very good group of employers who were willing to take on young people.'

While the latest statistics showed a decrease in employment, Southland also had a workforce shortage, which was part of the purpose of the pop-up shop, she said.

Engineering, social work, health services and truck driving all had positions that Beckham said that Southland employers struggled to fill.

The aim of the shop was to use a collaborative approach in order to address employment issues, she said.

'What we are trying to do is get employers to think collectively rather than competitively to help address shortages of staff.'

This involved talking with other employers about potential candidates that skills set met the company's needs, Beckham said.

Workbridge employment consultant Steve Watson said there were certainly jobs out there in the labour market but there could be other barriers that prevented employment.

'There are very few people who want to be unemployed but there are lots of obstacles to get through to be employed.'

Confidence was need to go through the employment phase and getting people to sell themselves could be a major barrier, he said.