Today free lunch is being offered to encourage senior business people in Rockhampton to hear the benefits of hiring people over 50 years of age. What about 15-24 year olds?
‘If you are frustrated about the lack of interest from the Department of Education to developing C2C (Communication to Careers) then why do it, it’s not that you make anything out of it and must take up a fair bit of time’. That was one response I received to last week’s column, along with ‘you were obviously disappointed’ about the outcome from your Community Cabinet meeting. Yes we were disappointed, why do it, because we believe C2C does have a positive impact on both the students and business people involved. April 2015 unemployment rates for 15-24 year olds in northern Queensland indicate the Fitzroy region, which includes Rockhampton, the Capricorn Coast, Gladstone and Emerald, is 21.4%, over 1 in 5 unemployed. How many more are underutilised? The Mackay region is slightly worse at 21.5%. However Fitzroy was the only northern Queensland region to see an increase in youth unemployment. Cairns, Townsville and Mackay all decreased from March to April. In 12 months the official youth unemployment rate for Fitzroy has gone from 8% (April 2014) to 21.4%, nearly trebled. Why is there not more attention(or subsidised lunches) brought to this issue? Imagine if this situation continues. The intention of this week’s column by highlighting these alarming statistics is get more people proactive in doing something about it. The next 3 C2C’s involve 252 students, 252 students from 2 local secondary schools who have done C2C’s in the past. These schools recognise the benefits students derive from C2C and want to do it again with other students. For the students to gain the greatest benefit we need more business support. Support in terms of taking about 2 hours out of your day to converse with the students. Enabling them to develop a business network, demonstrate their communication skills, ask questions, gain confidence, be better prepared for employment opportunities. To aspire for a stronger CQ we need to be proactive in getting more of our youth jobs, ideally within our region. If you are interested visit www.ring.org.au/c2c, there are another 252 reasons to do so.