How your child can thrive in North Queensland’s new workforce

Calling all high school parents - leave the kids at home tonight and get yourself down to a first-of-its-kind career expo set up to teach parents all about North Queensland’s changing jobs market.

Gordon TAFE has been inundated with students wanting to be an electrician. Certificate II in Electrotechnology pre-apprenticeship students Tom Baum and Kayla Mangan fitting solar panels. Picture: Glenn Ferguson

Calling all high school parents - leave the kids at home tonight and get yourself down to a career expo set up to teach parents all about North Queensland’s changing jobs market.

Called ‘Pathways and Possibilities’ the free event is being held at Pimlico State High School on Monday night, June 16, 5.30pm to 7.30pm, and is designed to get parents up to speed on Townsville’s booming jobs economy.

Jobs Townsville North Queensland (JTNQ) project manager Lisa McDonald said the event was created off the back of two school surveys - one revealed parents were desperate to understand today’s job market, and the other showed children listed their parents as the single biggest influences on what career they pursued.

“We’ve done a lot of work to see what’s coming to this region and where the good jobs are going to be,” Dr McDonald said.

“The 10 industries we’ve got attending tonight are the ones which will have a lot of jobs over the next 30 years.”

(Back) Mandy Elliott and Brett Price with their son, Jett Elliott-Price (14), who'll be undertaking work experience soon. (Front) Jobs Townsville North Queensland project manager Lisa McDonald.

Industries attending include: health, construction, retail, education, public admin, manufacturing and more.

“We’ll have speakers and Q&A sessions where parents can ask questions,” Dr McDonald said.

“With the workforce shortage coming, employers are very interested in training up local kids.”

Electrical trades are one of the biggest growth areas right now, as North Queensland stares down the barrel of $29 billion in upcoming projects - most of that CopperString and renewable energy projects.

Ruby Menhennet, pictured while on work experience with Nutrien Ag. Picture: Zoe Phillips

“Getting an electrical apprenticeship isn’t just about becoming an electrician, you could branch off and build substations, look after wind turbines, or do transmission lines,” Dr McDonald said.

“Work experience is becoming incredibly valuable.”

Parents might assume their aircraft-mad kid needs to leave Townsville to work for Boeing, but the manufacturer is actually setting up a maintenance facility here in Townsville to service Apache helicopters - and they plan to train up locals for the job. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

Mum Mandy Elliott has taken full advantage of work experience programs for her 14-year-old son.

“He’s interested in two very different things - physiotherapy or being an electrician,” Mrs Elliott said.

“His school has been able to find him work experience in both fields which will really help him see what these jobs are really like.”

Dr McDonald said while kids still worried about picked a job because they felt they were locked into it for life, careers have become very flexible.

“I started out in agriculture, then I went to ag tech, regional development, I ended up in energy, and now I’m in regional development again,” she said.

“The world is your oyster.”

Originally published as How your child can thrive in North Queensland’s new workforce