By Christine de Kock
FIVE suburbs in the City of Wyndham have been identified as being “vulnerable” to job losses in the face of the global financial crisis, a University of Newcastle report has revealed.
Laverton, Werribee, Tarneit, Hoppers Crossing and Wyndham Vale were described in the report as “amber alert” suburbs, having a “medium to high risk” of significant job losses.
The report comes after the recent release of Centrelink figures, which showed Werribee had an 11 per cent increase from December 2008 to January 2009 in requests for Newstart and Youth Allowances.
The report gives suburbs across Australia an Employment Vulnerability Index (EVI), highlighting them as either red or amber alert suburbs.
The alerts indicate which suburbs were “most exposed to potential job losses and least well placed to escape disadvantage associated with increasing unemployment.”
The EVI figure took into consideration 2006 unemployment figures, levels of education and income among other risk factors.
Each of the listed City of Wyndham suburbs had a population that was younger than the Victorian average and in terms of post secondary qualifications, having education levels that were below the state average.
These statistics were among other factors that earned the suburbs an amber alert.
Professor Bill Mitchell from the University of Newcastle’s Centre of Full Employment and Equity is pushing for the Federal Government to focus on job creation.
“The current Federal Government approach to stimulus is not focused on direct job creation and the jobs dividend on the significant public spending will be small,” he said.
“If you really want a policy that minimises job loss, then handing out $900 to everybody below $100,000 isn’t going to help much.
“The best way to target job loss is to create jobs, and it’s unlikely that the private market will create jobs in the patterns needed to minimise damage in the red and amber areas.”
Prof Mitchell also suggested that the government should introduce a “Job Guarantee” which would offer a “public works job to anyone who wanted a minimum wage.”
“This is a perfect chance to guarantee anyone who doesn’t have a job, or has lost their job, to go in and do this work,” he said.
“When the private sector starts growing, they’ll easily be able to buy the labour back because they’ll pay them higher wages.”
LeadWest chief executive Anton Mayer said as a regional advocate for the West it was important to push for investment in “infrastructure and other issues that protect people’s jobs.”
“I would think it would be better to spend money on major infrastructure, looking at long-term benefits and creating job opportunities for people to work in productive things such as broadband network, building schools,” he said.
