The United Services Union welcomes the Minns government’s commitment to inject $252 million into the state’s 128 local councils to employ 1,300 apprentices and trainees to fill gaping skills shortages.
The next generation of mechanics, engineers, early childhood educators, plumbers, civil construction workers, and planning cadets will begin work early next year across the state thanks to the announcement.
This is a USU win! We have been campaigning for this policy for the past three years and we now look forward to re-skilling local government as it was in the 70’s-80’s and 90’s.
Councils are experiencing declining workforce numbers with a large portion of experienced professionals who have worked in local government for decades due to retire within the next five years.
Many trainees and apprentices who start their career at councils under this funding boost may choose to build a career in Local Government or move on to build the houses of the future!
This $252 million funding boost is desperately needed.
Over 1000 young people across NSW will soon start their first job thanks to this scheme, and in the bush that’s especially valuable as it means they’ll stay put rather than move to our swollen cities looking for work or training opportunities.
You can’t have ‘rhyme time’ at the local library, or a nice clean pool to swim in in summer or freshly mowed ovals on the weekend unless you have highly skilled, hard-working council workers providing these front line services seven days a week.
The Minns government didn’t create this skills crisis, but they’ve rolled up their sleeves and fixed it.
The previous government wasn’t listening when councils from Armidale to Albury were crying out about skills shortages and their aging workforce, to their credit Premier Chris Minns and Local Government Minister Ron Hoenig have heard them and taken decisive action.
We could never achieve wins like this without you.
Our membership is strong and that enables us to campaign for the best results that can deliver jobs and growth to the whole local government sector.
This funding and these jobs give our industry a future.
The USU also looks forward to working with the Minister’s office, Skills and Training to ensure that NSW has a modern local government employment program designed to deliver for our communities.
By your side,
Graeme Kelly OAM
USU General Secretary
