LOCAL manufacturer AME Systems is continuing to grow its workforce, with 29 Fijians commencing work this week.<\/p>\n
Like many businesses in regional Victoria, AME has been unable to fill numerous positions at its Ararat site, forcing the company to look further afield.<\/p>\n
Last year, the company recruited close to 100 people from Samoa to fill vacancies under the Pacific Labor Scheme.<\/p>\n
Managing Director Nick Carthew said the inclusion of the Samoan workforce has been extremely positive.<\/p>\n
He said 29 Fijians arrived in Ararat at the weekend and officially started work with the company on Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve taken on 29 Fijians under the Pacific Labour Scheme and they were greeted here last Sunday with a barbeque lunch at the factory,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cEight of the 29 will be located in our Bayswater facility, we\u2019re obviously having issues finding the right number of people in Melbourne as well now. The remainder, the other 21 will start inductions to start work on Thursday,\u201d Mr Carthew said.<\/p>\n
The region\u2019s low unemployment rate has contributed to a shortage of locally based workers in recent years.<\/p>\n
Mr Carthew said the company has been advertising for new staff across the region for some time with limited success.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are getting some locals, but it might be seven or eight where we need numbers that are in the hundreds,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of building happening, so we\u2019ve lost a lot of people to adult apprenticeships becoming electricians and plumbers which is fantastic and we\u2019re supporting people to take on those opportunities. But every time that happens we are a person down and we need to replace them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only sustainable way for us to cement ourselves here is with the PLS (Pacific Labour) Scheme. It has been very successful,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LOCAL manufacturer AME Systems is continuing to grow its workforce, with 29 Fijians commencing work this week.
\nLike many businesses in regional Victoria, AME has been unable to fill numerous positions at its Ararat site, forcing the company to look further afield.
\nLast year, the company recruited close to 100 people from Samoa to fill vacancies under the Pacific Labor Scheme.
\nManaging Director Nick Carthew said the inclusion of the Samoan workforce has been extremely positive.
\nHe said 29 Fijians arrived in Ararat at the weekend and officially started work with the company on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":737,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[31],"class_list":["post-751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Photo-20-2-22-11-50-10-am-cropped.jpg?fit=1920%2C963&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdqUu4-c7","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=751"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}