Mandurah MP David Templeman sobered by ‘desperate, distressing’ scenes at jobs fair

Hundreds of job seekers queued for hours to speak with businesses at the redeveloped Forum.

Mr Templeman said he was overwhelmed by the number of people who attended and said lines stretched through the shopping centre for 400 metres, reminding him of scenes he witnessed during the recession of the early 1980s.

“It was unbelievable to see so many people who are in a situation where they are either seeking work or seeking more work,” he said.

“It was a sobering and in some ways distressing experience, to be honest.

“It was a sign of the times in many respects, but it really gave me more resolve that this is an issue that has to be addressed and it has to be multi-layered how we approach it.

“Governments at all levels now have to re-invigorate our commitment to deal with this because, I’ve got to say, there were a lot of desperate people there last night and they were people who were desperate to find work.”

Mr Templeman said he was concerned about both unemployment and under-employment.

“Two young women I spoke to from the Yunderup area, they just had their hours cut from 30 hours to 15 and of course they were there because they needed to supplement their income to continue to pay their car repayments,” he said.

“Then I spoke to a 55-year-old woman and a group of women in their 50s, who were actively seeking work, who had teenagers or children of their own in their early 20s, who were desperately needing to find work just to keep their households running.”

Centre manager Jacqueline McKenzie said she estimated there were 2000 job seekers at the event.

“It was inspiring to see job seekers grasp the opportunity to connect and showcase their skills to some of the exciting new businesses as well as existing retailers who are expanding their teams,” she said.

“With casual, part time and full-time opportunities with retailers, service providers and hospitality operators all available, it was fantastic to see so many job seekers apply for roles on the spot or learn more about what career options will soon be on offer at Mandurah Forum.”  

Mr Templeman congratulated Mandurah Forum for the initiative and said he could see positives coming out of the jobs fair.

“Although I found it distressing in many ways because of that sense of desperation, there was also a resolve among a lot of those people which buoyed me in many ways,” he said.

“They were not giving up, by purely being there it demonstrated that when people try to bandy around that everyone who is unemployed is lazy, or whatever, well that was blown out of the water because these people were willing to work, they were wanting to work, a number of them told me about efforts they had already gone to retrain or reskill.”

The latest ABS jobless figures had Mandurah’s unemployment rate at an average of 10.3 per cent over the year to April 2017.

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