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http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=18103&page=1 Most of this unfortunately is not a surprise to me, as I'm sure it will be to no surprise to many of you reading it. It goes on everywhere, it's rife in London as it seems one man and his dog can become a recuiter, it takes time, experience and a seasoned approach to be able to spot them, of the 10 or so recruitment "pimps" I had contact with in adelaide, I'd say 1 maybe 2 were of any use and one of those i simply used as a factor once I actually got the position, contract and negoitiated them as a middle man becuase I did not want to deal direct with the gov, dodged a cashflow bullet on that one. Of the 10 or so recruitment "pimps" I used in London, similar story pretty useless, marginally better than adelaide if you stick to reference and the specialist agencies, currently no pimp needed so direct. These kind of plays by these people are survivable in a thick market with substantial programs of work underway, in a small contracting market, it must be hell, becuase they exclude, block and arbitrage their mates and best-margins into the jobs, so the experienced (read more expensive) applicants never get a look in... Malcolm King: Adelaide's private recruiters are listing false job advertisements, harvesting resumes to sell training and lying to candidates about their employment prospects. Thousands of job changers and desperate job seekers are wasting their time sending online applications off for jobs that don't exist. They are grilled by recruiters about their recent job interviews, then recruiters contact those employers to try sell them their candidates. Applicants are simply 'resume meat'. The English poet Shelley wrote, "in me lies such power, for I grow weary to behold the selfish and the strong still tyrannize without reproach or check." It's the tyranny of the few over the many as recruiters have inveigled their way, by craft and guile, to become the gatekeepers of leadership aspiration in Adelaide. Not a day goes by without my professional writing clients venting their spleen at private recruitment and private training agents. "As low as a snake's prostate," one client spat. In the journalistic spirit of a latter day Barbara Ehrenreich, I applied for a three-month position through a recruitment agency in Adelaide as a Senior Assessment Officer, working for the Commonwealth Government. The Government wanted 12 people to assess aged care grants across the state. It required a sound knowledge of policy and working within legal frameworks. I was interviewed and told a week later that I had not got the job. There was no feedback. No transparency of process. No accountability. I know why I was knocked back. I'm 56 and over qualified. Qualifications and executive experience are negatives in Adelaide. That's why I run my own business. I had previously worked for the Department of Employment in Canberra as an Associate Director in Labour Market Strategy. A core area was ensuring there were trained staff as the first wave of Boomers hit residential aged care homes. There's also rash of online jobs boards run by current or former recruiters, who funnel resumes directly to private training organisations. They use the resumes' private contact information to sell applicants training and then get them to access their VET FEE Help accounts. Private VET trainers (many are recruiters) have cajoled, scammed and burdened thousands of kids with unwanted VET-FEE billsfor rubbish training, delivered by people who can't teach and who are in it for the fast bucks. It wasn't until I saw a client, Bill, in his late 20s, that I realised how far and deeply entrenched some of these scams were. Bill saw a job advertised online at OneShiftfor a warehousing position in Adelaide. He sent off his resume. Three days later he was called by 'Guy' from OneShift in Sydney, who said he had not been short listed for the job. Guy said Bill's employment chances would 'improve drastically' if he undertook some Vocational Education and Training (VET) at a national private training provider. The cost was about three times what a TAFE program would cost and all he had to do was access his VET FEE HELP account. Bill said 'no'. In a world where the lowest common denominator is not hard to find, private recruitershave carved out their own niche. Unfortunately, they're also not the smartest girls and guys in the room. At a recent work function I spoke to a senior recruiter in her early 30s about the emotional impact of visiting Auschwitz in Poland. She looked puzzled. 'Did you go skiing?' She was hiring executives in Adelaide. Recruiters know very little about the competencies or capabilities of the advertised roles. Many have never been to a mine, a factory or know what an IT specialist does. If the recruiter doesn't know what the role entails, what's the point of talking to them in the first place? The brand damage to employers is incalculable. When liberty's light falls full on recruiter's startled faces, they scatter like cockroaches and wait nervously for the danger to pass. Or else they stand like pious deacons, full of their own importance, with one hand in the client's pocket while humbugging the career aspirations of tens of thousands of South Australians. A 2015 Four Corners program called The Jobs Game, found that some Job Service Australia (JSA) employees in Adelaide's northern suburbs put clients into courses run by the company's own registered agencies. There's no pretense of separation let alone transparency or accountability. Some jobseekers believe JSA's have forged their signatures and turned in false paperwork. A 2012 government audit found only 40 per cent of fees paid to agencies could be verified. What happened to the other 60 percent? Australia's welfare to work program costs $1.3 billion-a-year. Last year I emailed the reporter on the Four Corners program, Linton Besser, and he said that not one single local or Federal Government agency had done anything about it. It's a free for all with taxpayers money. One gets the distinct feeling that both the Government and the Department of Employment have put this in the 'too hard basket'. The time is ripe for a class action by those who, with evidence in hand, are willing to tell a judge and the media how they have been abused and how this scurrilous and predatory practice has effected their life. It's time to name names. We live in a world where corporations are judged by their partnerships. We should not support businesses who hire sharks and buffoons to traduce the character and intelligence of prospective staff. We live in a state that can only survive if we have the right people in the right jobs. We live in a time that cries out for authenticity, not deceptions; for truth, not lies. [h=2]About the Author[/h] Malcolm King works in generational workforce change. He was an associate director at DEEWR Labour Market Strategy in Canberra and the senior communications strategist at Carnegie Mellon University. He also runs a professional writing business called Republic.

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=17546 good luck

This is from last july 2014. South Australia’s job figures have thrust it into a special place – the worst in the nation and with little or no prospect of change. For the families of 64,500 unemployed, it makes for a dark and cold winter. Blaming international currency trends, federal Budget cuts or statistical anomalies doesn’t wash either when the official figures show that every other state is doing better than SA. Reflecting on June’s unemployment figures, leading economic analyst Michael O’Neil said “the medium to longer-term outlook is in our hands” while the short-term reality of the unemployment rate shows SA is in need of immediate stimulus. O’Neil and his Adelaide University-based think tank, the SA Centre for Economic Studies, have been warning about structural deficiencies in the local economy for several years. The State Government, meanwhile, points to the prospect of some new shops opening in Kilburn as an example of job creation........................... read on: http://indaily.com.au/news/2014/07/11/jobs-policies-tatters/

CommSec's quarterly 'State of the States' report was released yesterday and once again, South Australia is still in seventh place, while Tasmania has the nation's worst performing economy. The full report can be downloaded @ http://www.investing.commsec.com.au/media/119240/e130722.pdf The report analyses eight key indicators: economic growth retail spending equipment investment unemployment construction work done population growth housing finance dwelling commencements Western Australia remains the top-performing economy in the nation with little slippage in the ranking over the past three months. However the big change has been the lift in the ranking of the ACT to second while the Northern Territory economy has slipped to third strongest. There has been little change in the ranking of other states. Western Australia comes out top on three of the eight criteria – housing finance, retail spending and equipment investment. Western Australia is still second on three of the eight indicators, third on dwelling starts and fifth on unemployment. The switching in the rankings of the Northern Territory and the ACT is largely due to weakening in the performance of the job market in the Northern Territory and improvement in the job market in the ACT. NSW is the fourth strongest economy from Victoria and Queensland. Then there is a gap to South Australia - While the state is middle ranking on unemployment and construction work, it lags on economic growth, retail spending and equipment investment. and then another gap to Tasmania. [img2=right]http://www.perthpoms.com/images/commsec/economicgrowth.png[/img2]Economic Growth The Northern Territory continues to lead the rankings on economic activity. Activity in the ‘top end’ is almost 40 per cent above its ‘normal’ or decade-average level of output. Next strongest is Western Australia, with output around 33 per cent higher than the decade average level of output. Then follows Queensland (up 18.3 per cent) from the ACT (up 17.3 per cent). At the other end of the scale, economic activity in Tasmania in the March quarter was just 3.0 per cent above its decade average while South Australian activity was up almost 10 per cent on its “normal” or average output over the past decade. The Northern Territory also maintains the fastest annual economic growth rate in the nation, up by 13.5 per cent on a year ago, ahead of Western Australia with 7.9 per cent and NSW (3.0 per cent). The weakest trend economic growth rate was recorded in Tasmania (-2.6 per cent) followed by South Australia (-2.1 per cent) and Victoria (-0.1 per cent). [img2=right]http://www.perthpoms.com/images/commsec/retail.png[/img2]Retail trade Western Australia retains top spot on the retail rankings with spending in the March quarter 25.2 per cent above decade average levels. Solid population growth, a lift in home purchases and firm wage growth underpin the relative strength in consumer spending. Northern Territory was next strongest, again courtesy of low unemployment, with spending just under 19 per cent above decade-average levels. Queensland was next strongest, with spending 15 per cent above decade averages, followed by Victoria (up 11.5per cent). Tasmania has the weakest result on retail spending, up just 2.7 per cent on the decade average (but up from 1.4 per cent in the December quarter), and below South Australia with growth of 6.6 per cent. In terms of the monthly retail trade series, Western Australian spending is 4.3 per cent higher than a year ago, just in front of Queensland with 4.2 per cent growth, the ACT with 3.4 per cent growth and NSW, up 3.2 per cent. At the other end of the scale, Tasmanian spending is 1.9 per cent down on a year ago and South Australian spending is lower by 1.0 per cent. [img2=right]http://www.perthpoms.com/images/commsec/equipment.png[/img2]Equipment investment Western Australia continues to be well above other states and territories when it comes to equipment investment. Spending in the March quarter was almost 75 per cent above “normal” – or decade-average levels but down from 103.2 per cent in the December quarter. Next placed were the ACT (up 36.6 per cent) and Queensland (up 33.4 per cent) followed by NSW (up 15.7 per cent), Victoria (up 5.2 per cent) and Northern Territory (up 4.5 per cent). By contrast, new equipment spending in South Australia was in line with its decade-average while Tasmania had business investment 1.3 per cent below its longer-term average in the March quarter. On a shorter-run analysis, equipment investment in the March quarter was lower than a year ago in five of the state and territory economies. Currently equipment investment is down on a year ago in Tasmania (down 33.6 per cent), Northern Territory (down 26.9 per cent), South Australia (down 15.5 per cent), NSW (down 6.2 per cent) and Victoria (down 0.1 per cent). By contrast new equipment investment in the ACT is up 50.4 per cent on a tear earlier followed by Queensland (up 10.4 per cent) and Western Australia (up 0.1 per cent). [img2=right]http://www.perthpoms.com/images/commsec/unemployment.png[/img2]Unemployment NSW and the ACT arguably have the strongest job markets in the nation. While its trend unemployment rate of 5.5 per cent is not the lowest in the nation, the NSW jobless rate is just 5.1 per cent above the “normal” or decade average level. In the ACT, trend unemployment has fallen from 4.5 per cent to 3.7 per cent over the past four months but this is 9.3 per cent above its decade average rate of 3.4 per cent. In Victoria the 5.7 per cent jobless rate is 9.2 per cent above its decade average. At the other end of the scale Tasmania’s 8.1 per cent jobless rate is the highest in the nation and up 36 per cent on the decade average. The Northern Territory job market is next weakest – a significant turnaround over the last report. In the past six months the jobless rate has lifted from 4.0 per cent to 5.3 per cent and it is now 23 per cent above its decade average level of 4.3 per cent. [img2=right]http://www.perthpoms.com/images/commsec/construction.png[/img2]Construction Work In all states/territories except Tasmania construction work is higher than decade averages. And there remains a large gap between the strongest states (the resource states) and weakest states (Tasmania). In Tasmania, overall new construction work completed is 3.5 per cent below its decade average. By contrast construction work done in Northern Territory was almost 80 per cent above its decade average followed by Western Australia (up 66 per cent) and Queensland (up almost 53 per cent). Next weakest to Tasmania is Victoria where construction work is 15.8 per cent above decade averages, followed by NSW (up 19.4 per cent on the decade average). In terms of annual growth rates, Northern Territory construction work done in the March quarter was up 55.7 per cent on a year ago, followed by Queensland (up 7.7 per cent) and NSW (up 6.4 per cent). Four of the states and territories had weaker construction work than a year ago. [img2=right]http://www.perthpoms.com/images/commsec/population.png[/img2]Population Growth Western Australia is the clear leader in population growth. Not only is the annual growth rate of 3.47 per cent the strongest in the nation, it is also almost 46 per cent above the decade average. But the actual leader in the rankings is the ACT. Annual population growth of 2.31 per cent is the highest in 21 years and is almost 57 per cent above “normal’. In NSW current annual population growth of 1.25 per cent is 18 per cent above the decade average. At the other end of the leader-board is Tasmania where the annual population growth of 0.08 per cent is the weakest in over 11 years and a massive 90 per cent below the decade average rate of 0.77 per cent. Housing Finance In all but three states and territories, trend housing finance commitments are below decade averages – an improvement on the previous report when all economies had activity below decade averages. In the strongest state of Western Australia, the number of housing finance commitments was 10 per cent above the decade-average level and commitments in May were 16.5 per cent higher than a year ago. Victoria was in second spot for housing finance, with the number of commitments 2.3 per cent above the longterm average. And importantly the market has momentum with home lending 5.7 per cent higher than a year ago in trend terms to a 42-month high. The ACT remains in third spot on housing finance, up 1.4 per cent on the decade average followed by NSW (down 4.4 per cent). Tasmania is the weakest economy for housing finance with trend commitments 27.7 per cent lower than its decade average, but encouragingly commitments were up 4.9 on a year ago. Next weakest was the Northern Territory with trend commitments down 23.8 per cent on the decade average. [img2=right]http://www.perthpoms.com/images/commsec/dwellings.png[/img2]Dwelling Starts The outlook for housing construction has improved, underpinned by state government grants for new construction and low interest rates. Dwelling starts are above decade averages in five of the states and territories and again starts in five states and territories are above levels of a year ago. The Northern Territory is in the strongest position for new housing construction, with starts almost 54 per cent above decade averages. In addition in the March quarter the number of dwellings started was 27 per cent higher than a year earlier, although down from the 61.6 per cent annual growth in the December quarter. In second spot was NSW, with starts over 16 per cent above decade averages. And there is plenty of momentum with starts in the quarter up 33.4 per cent on a year ago – the best growth in three years. In Western Australia, dwelling starts in the March quarter were up 11.2 per cent on the ‘normal’ or “decade average” level with starts in Victoria up almost 6 per cent and ACT starts still 2.3 per cent above decade averages. At the other end of the scale, Tasmanian dwelling starts were 38.6 per cent below decade averages, while starts in the March quarter were 25 per cent down on a year earlier. Next weakest was Queensland (down 20.5 per cent), followed by South Australia (down 12.5 per cent). South Australian starts in the March quarter were up 14.4 per cent over the year. [img2=right]http://www.perthpoms.com/images/commsec/houseprices.png[/img2]Other Indicators Real wages were positive in all economies in the March quarter except for the Northern Territory. Strongest growth occurred Tasmania at 2.2 percentage points, followed by Western Australia (1.3 percentage points) and the ACT (1.2 percentage points). Home prices are now higher than a year ago in all but Hobart (down 1.8 per cent). Strongest growth in home prices was in Darwin (up 6.1 per cent) followed by Perth (up 6.0 per cent) and Sydney (up 5.6 per cent).