Middle age dreaming

Posted to Monash Weekly (27/5/2013) on 30/5/2013 at 10:21 PM
Commenting on "Middle age dreaming"
http://www.monashweekly.com.au/story/1525014/middle-age-dreaming/

Don't change for the sake of change. If you need your present job to bring home the bacon, make sure you secure a new one first before resigning. The more senior you are in position or in age, the more difficult for you to find another one. The job market is diminishing rapidly recently.

You may have years of experience and a string of degrees, but so have many people. There is no guarantee that after leaving an unhappy workplace and those workmates you can't get along with, you will land in Xanadu. Every workplace has its own culture and does things differently. You may still turn out to be a square peg for a round hole.

If you are unemployed or thinking of taking that great leap, do not just enrol in a course and hope that the piece of paper you get at the end can fulfil your dream. You may be disappointed, disillusioned and regretted to have wasted days of useless training.

When choosing a course, make sure the skill and qualification gained WILL BE useful and relevant to the job you WILL BE seeking. Scoring top marks are not prerequisites for suitability of a job. Australia is very short of tradespeople, and a vocational qualification may be worth more than a degree at present.

70 jobs to go at Mulgrave's Agilent

Posted to Monash Weekly 26/11/2012 on 27/11/12 at 03:54 PM
Commenting on "70 jobs to go at Mulgrave's Agilent"
http://www.monashweekly.com.au/story/1141767/70-jobs-to-go-at-mulgraves-agilent/?cs=1229#comment-719968260

Job loss is just a symptom to a much bigger problem in employment and Australian economy. Day after day, we hear about job cut and job loss, but government in power has not come out with real strategy to curb the continuous decline.

I do not use the self checkout machines at Coles and Safeway, not because I do not know how to use them, but I feel a little bit better for not contributing towards additional job loss. Western nations have become victims of the technological success so we now witness the loss of employment to the developing countries.

Service industry blooms because the world is having a good time. Once the party is over, our good fortune goes down with it.

Now to 2015

Posted to Letters to Editor, Monash Weekly on 1/9/2011
Now to 2015
http://www.monashweekly.com.au/content/letterstotheeditor/

On the negatives, this is what will happen:

1. Gillard will step down;
2. Early election before next budget when Australia's financial blackhole will experience massive blowout;
3. Bob Brown will stay but the rest of The Greens will be pulverised;
4. Rudd will return as leader of opposition;
5. Housing downturn will continue until March/April 2013;
6. Official unemployment rate will reach 6.5%, but unofficial should be around 18%.
7. Many online shoppers will get badly burnt by cheats and unethical traders;
8. Online shopping sourced from overseas will be subjected to GST plus a new tax called custom handling tax.

Will Australians learn a lesson? Many will but some will still live in la-la land.

On the positives:

1. Both Upper and Lower Houses will be back in control of one Party;
2. There will less talk and more action to "move" Australia forward;
3. More satellite surveillance will be deployed for international water border control to curb illegal boats coming;
4. Boat people and asylum seekers when accepted to remain in Australia will be duty-bound for a fixed term to develop Christmas Island or similar places. This is not dissimilar to many immigrants to Australia who have work in country towns;
5. Reform and revitalise international education industry worth $18b just prior to sudden collapse in July 2010;
6. Reform higher education to ensure the degrees / certificates are up-to-scratch;
7. Sale of productive farm land to overseas investors will stop;
8. Coal seam gas production will not proceed;
9. Provide more research grant on combining carbon dioxide and salt;
10. Work towards a balanced model for primary industry, secondary industry and tertiary industry;
11. Savings will become a norm;
12. People are more cautious in spending including choosing among home-cook meals, frozen food, dine-out and takeaway foods.

If there is will, there is way!

Posted to Letters to Editor, Monash Weekly" on 29/7/2011
Title "If there is will, there is way!"
http://www.monashweekly.com.au/content/letterstotheeditor/

Many people are experiencing financial hardship, small business operators facing business closure and house owners will hand the houses back to the banks.

I understand very well because I worked 3 jobs to support myself through university. I later owned and operated a small business and hit the 80's downturn. With determination, I survived those tough times.

Keep calm or else you won't be able to see clearly, even if there is light at the end of the tunnel. Seek advice, seek help - don't just think about it, you must talk about it or no one will know that you are doing tough and need assistance.

I once wrote a blog as follows:

Las Vegas is situated on the arid desert floor of Nevada, USA. World Islands of Dubai are artificial islands off the coast of Dubai, built with 386 million tonnes of rock to form the foundations. Eskimos reside in the circumpolar region with sub-zero temperature without being frozen. Man can now fly to the moon without wings.

If there is a will, there is a way!

Good luck, you'll be right mate!

Keeping mature aged workers in jobs

Posted to Letters to Editor, Monash Weekly 8/4/2011
Keeping mature aged workers in jobs

The biggest problem why many qualified mature-age workers can't find jobs is that many recruitment companies and human resource departments are run by people who don't know about the nature of the positions advertised. They look for perfect match. Whoever can write an application with lots of BS that match the selection criteria will stand a chance for an interview, otherwise the application will be thrown into the non-Recycle bin.

There is no joy for a grey-hair applicant after getting a phone call to go for an interview. The next hurdle is to face a younger, feeling insecure manager who doesn't want anyone that can present a threat to his/her promotion or even replacing him/her in the future.

Many job advertisements are written by graduates who have just finished a TAFE / uni course, using terms or jargon that many people can't understand.
How many of these terminologies can a mature-age experienced person including managers who have been working for decades with small companies "decode"? e.g. 2IC, ICC, CCT, CO, MO, L&D, L&M, PD, KPI, KRA, 360 Degree feedback, 6 Thinking Hats, etc.

Who wants to appear like an idiot in front of an interviewer bombarding the applicant with these out-of-the world terminologies? How many courses do we expect the mature-age unemployed to attend to upgrade their qualification or to re-train? Who do you think the trainers are and what sort of qualification do they trainers have?

Do I sound cynical? Sure I do, I'm one of the unfortunate candidates.

To add salt to the wound, I'm more qualified and experienced than my students and yet if one of my students and I apply for the same position, guess who will get the job? Not me, for sure! Unfortunately, I'm over qualified – haha!

Will you take a Jack of many trades, and master of some like me? I love to hear from you!

Future of Australian Graduates

Posted to Letters to the Editor, Monash Weekly 21/1/2011
Title: Future of Australian Graduates

Australia is truly blessed by abundance of minerals, and the vast land was terrific for large-scale farming. In addition to minerals, wheat, sheep, cattle and wool became the major exports and moneymaking items.

As an English speaking country, Australia benefited from the spin-off of the Industrial Revolution. Large factories were set up which absorbed almost anyone and everyone who wanted to work after the Second World War. As the national wealth grew, so did the standard of living. In fact, blue-collar workers were making more money than the white-collar workers.

Machineries introduced earlier required replacement and cost a great deal. Compounding the problem was the rise of industrialisation in Japan, followed by other Asian countries. Due to the cheaper labour cost, many countries began importing goods from these overseas instead of manufacturing them. One by one, our manufacturing business closed.

Primary industries and mining kept the country going. The service industry replaced the manufacturing, and then came the I.T. Revolution. Many I.T. gurus predicted that the computers would create employment and give us more leisure time. Computers help to create many new jobs on one hand, and take away many more blue-collars jobs, too. They also make us work day and night.

Since the global village has no boundaries, using a computer with multimedia capability and Internet connection, any Australian office can be located somewhere else in the world. Consequently, office jobs have been outsourced to overseas countries, for examples, call centres and I.T. jobs being outsourced to India.

To overcome the problems of conforming to the Australian Qualification Framework (AQF) or legal requirement, entrepreneurs in Australia or overseas set up overseas companies, where labour cost is low. They employ ex-overseas students studying in the Australian TAFES or universities, or students trained by institutions which sent teachers / lecturers overseas on secondment or exchange program.

China - the factory of the world now; China - the office of the world, soon! I am truly concerned about the employment prospect of our Australian graduands!

Death of "Sweet Sixteen"

Posted to Waverley Leader on 23/3/2009
The Death of “Sweet Sixteen”
http://waverley-leader.whereilive.com.au/your-news/story/the-death-of-sweet-sixteenth/

Whether we like it or not, casualisation of labour market has been around for quite awhile, and it is here to stay. The last hours of debate to kill off the Work Choices, introduced by the former Liberal Government, was bogged down by the definition of the size of employment capacity. Once again, Senator Steve Fielding, the trump card holder in the Upper House, allowed the bill to pass after giving concession to Julie Gillard, the deputy prime minister, that for the first five years a small business is defined as one which employs 15 full-time equivalents (FTEs) and after which will amend to 15 individuals in total.

If the politicians care to talk to the store holders in shopping strips and shopping centres, particularly the hospitality business including take away outlets, they will realise that most of them would probably employ more than 15 casuals and part-time. Many current small business owners employ students as casual sales assistants, waiters and cleaners for a few hours of work per week, and are generally paid at under-award rates. Most students understand that they have been exploited and yet remained silent, for the fact that the little money they earn helps to subsidise their accommodation rental, daily expenses and education fees. Many business operators pay the casuals by cash-in-hand, and by doing so, they do not contribute adequately to Work Cover. In short, their annual income reported is not worth the paper it is written on.

Another industry that uses a lot of casual employees is the education sector especially in the TAFE colleges. Public TAFE colleges do employ more than 15 staff, but not many small private institutions or Recognised Training Organisations (RTO). Hundreds of competencies (or subjects) are available and being delivered (or taught) by skill-specific casual or sessional teachers. It is possible that 15 casual teachers are employed to deliver 15 competencies, each for 2 to 3 hours a week. Indeed, the total hours requires engaging the 15 teachers are less than 3 FTE’s.

Gillard’s definition for small business will force many more business owners not to record casual workers on their payroll, thus putting more workers at risk as they will be not covered by Work Cover. For the private RTOs, they will likely to sacrifice quality by employing sessional teachers who are able to deliver multiple competencies but of mediocre standard.

A fairer definition should place more emphasis on the earning capacity of the business rather than the number employed!