Council bid for young workers

– Paul Pickering
KNOX City Council will launch a $20,000 recruitment drive this year in a bid to revitalise its ageing workforce.
The funding for the Knox Workforce Action Plan was effectively rubber-stamped this week as part of the 2007-08 draft budget.
Knox’s director of corporate development Mick Jaensch said that the make-up of the council’s outdoor operations workforce was particularly concerning, with an average age of over 57.
As well as addressing the need to recruit young blood for these positions, the council is also hoping to tackle shortages in engineers, health surveyors and planners.
Mr Jaensch admitted that the council was struggling to promote itself as an employer in the current industrial climate.
“With an ageing workforce and with the competition out there for these graduates, we need to get smarter,” he said.
“That $20,000 is really putting a toe in the water but what we really need to do is become more aware of how we can be perceived as an employer of choice in the universities and in the schools.”
Mr Jaensch said that the budgetary funding would allow Knox to consider the inclusion of a cadetship program for aspiring council workers as well as developing a strategy to promote the council as an employer to university graduates.