OUT of more than 150 people who entered Wodonga TAFE’s Back To Work program, just over one third have found work as of last week.
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The program has found jobs for 51 people, but still has just over one month left to run before it reaches a conclusion.
Work program coordinator Scott O’Brien said he was incredibly excited by the results the program had yielded in its first year.
“It’s an absolute ripper,” he said.
“I come from a background of working in labour market programs, we design our programs to deliver exactly this kind of result.”
After the Victorian government provided funding for the program late last year, Mr O’Brien said one of the biggest challenges had been figuring out exactly what kind of training they would offer.
A total of 14 separate programs, covering areas like construction, childcare, hospitality, agriculture, business, horticulture, retail, warehousing and outdoor works were ultimately offered.
“There’s a fair bit of work that goes into these sorts of things,” Mr O’Brien said.
“We’ve been able to deliver a number of programs that we hadn’t before.
“It took a bit of work to figure out exactly what we would be able to offer.
“We get a lot of employers calling us up and asking if we have apprentices in certain areas.
“We also look at skills shortages lists, which outline where there are positions that employers are struggling to fill.
“Quite a lot of those positions and fields haven’t changed over the last 10 to 15 years, so it’s all about introducing people to them.”
Highlights of the Back To Work program included a social enterprise project that found 11 people paid jobs and assisted another two into further education through work experience opportunities with businesses at Wodonga Plaza, as well as a civil construction program aimed at Aboriginal jobseekers which found jobs for seven students.
“If you told me when we started this that a third of the people who enrolled would get a job out of it, I would have taken it in a heartbeat,” Mr O’Brien said.
“It’s an extremely satisfying outcome.
“The best part is that there’s still a month left to run.
“We’re already looking at what we can improve on when we run the program again in 2017.”
