Electricians/ elec engineer 1 week reccei in perth

[flip flop]

From the bad press coming across this site and internet news with regards the WA economy I decided to get on a plane and go and see first hand how things really are in Perth. My family and I lived in Perth in the crazy year of 2006. I swear to this day that before we decided to emigrate then, I had no idea there was a mining boom going on until the day we arrived and everything was mental. Home opens had 100 people filing through and expression of interest started $30,000 dollars over the asking price. Jobs were plentiful. In fact you could take your pick from 50 odd Electricians adverts in the West Australian. An A grade licence was quite easy to obtain.

Fast forward to Sept 2015.

I arrived in Perth and picked up the car rental (Hertz). The woman was nice and asked why I was in Perth. I said " I'm looking for employment opportunities this week". Her reply was less than impressive." Oh no, there is not a lot of work here and a lot of people are being laid off". "What do you do she asked". Proudly I stated I was an Electrical Engineer and had an A grade Electrical workers licence. " Oh no, there is no work here for Engineers" again was her reply. Not a great start.

Anyway I headed off to my holiday let in Mindarie which I have to say was quite reasonable at approx $600 for the week fully furnished which isn't too bad when converted to UK Pounds. The conversion never ever left my thoughts when we last lived in Perth).The climate is nice (25) but what shocked me is how cold it was at night. I had to have a jacket on after 5 o clock.

I then headed off to a few recruitment agencies. Skilled was the first but they never wanted to speak to me- just enrole online was the reply. Not really what I wanted to hear after travelling half way around the world. Undefeated I then went down St Georges Terrace in my best gladrags to try to make contact with someone from the recruitment agencies that could just tell me what the employment climate was like. I had a discussion with an agent who stated that there were not many opportunities and that they were worried about their jobs. They were in fact working for the Malaysian recruitment office as there was not enough work in WA . The only light relief contact I did receive was from a big issue seller who stated he was selling the big issue for a dollar during the day so he would not mug city workers at night. I didn't reply but wanted to also tell him I was in relatively the same circumstance trying my damn hardest to try to obtain employment. I did laugh as I walked away.

So times have changed.... The employment pages are quite bare. There is work but it is of little quantity. The only section that surprised me was the Education employment. Their seems to be quite a lot of teachers jobs and support teachers. I then went on to see some friends. I had a discussion about work and they stated everything had slowed down. He had been made redundant but had managed to gain employment but not as well paid. Still the freeways are still full. Don't know where all the people are going and looking to the sky the number of planes flying into Perth quite surprised me. This might of been the extra planes brought in to ferry everyone out to the Grand Final but still over the week there was a lot of activity. There looks to be a lot of government money projects happening to create jobs maybe to help the economy but I ended the week thinking this place has changed. The optimism was missing. The jobs were missing and so I return back to the UK thinking maybe things are not so bad in the UK after all. Still not a bad little break though! Recession comes to mind.

Edited October 6, 2015 by flip flop

[Marisawright]

Thanks for posting! It's interesting to hear the viewpoint of someone who is actually looking for work.

 

We have had a lot of feedback from members currently living in Perth who feel it's not as bad as it's painted - but then, they already have jobs.

 

Since Perth benefited the most from the mining boom, it makes sense that it should be hardest hit in the downturn. I wonder how it's affecting the other states.

[Paul1Perth]

Sounds a strange thing to do, pop over to the other side of the world to look for work for a week, just to update someone on a website. Don't know what you told the recruiter but if you told him the truth how would he have any confidence in you actually being serious about wanting a job or turning up for one if he looked into anything for you? I wouldn't have gone out of my way for you either.

 

My son is a sparkie, working FIFO, has changed companies at the same site for better money in the last couple of months. One of my friends sons is a sparkie, took redundancy from a job thinking he would be able to walk into another position and was surprised he couldn't find something straight away. I think that is what has changed, a lot of young guys, like my son would work a few months FIFO, save up a load of money, hand in their notice then go on a long holiday. My son has done exactly that a few times.

 

Me and the wife have been trying to drum into him that things are changing though and the other young guy I mentioned had to wait a month or so before he got a job. He's back in now though, on good money again.

 

I think sparkies are one of the few professions that will find work, it's definitely taking a bit longer but there is work out there. May get worse, may get better, may level out at this for a while.

 

Wouldn't base my experience of one week flying in from the UK though.

[VERYSTORMY]

Paul

on a individual basi things can be good. For example, my best friend works in IT. Not in highflying London but for Next in Leiecester. He had the biggest bonuses of all time between 2008 and 2013. Yet there is no doubt the UK was in recession - and a severe one.

 

A number of friends were headhunted during the same period for big incomes (100k salaries). None lived in London.

 

I might be about to secure a $180k a year role in geo exploration. But we have 40% unemployment.

 

In the 1980's big recession in the UK. It hit steel producers massively. Yet, this was when my dad became "middle class". We had a nice house. A car and all the trappings.

 

Some me people escape downturns. But many do not.

[flip flop]

Sounds a strange thing to do, pop over to the other side of the world to look for work for a week, just to update someone on a website. Don't know what you told the recruiter but if you told him the truth how would he have any confidence in you actually being serious about wanting a job or turning up for one if he looked into anything for you? I wouldn't have gone out of my way for you either.

 

My son is a sparkie, working FIFO, has changed companies at the same site for better money in the last couple of months. One of my friends sons is a sparkie, took redundancy from a job thinking he would be able to walk into another position and was surprised he couldn't find something straight away. I think that is what has changed, a lot of young guys, like my son would work a few months FIFO, save up a load of money, hand in their notice then go on a long holiday. My son has done exactly that a few times.

 

Me and the wife have been trying to drum into him that things are changing though and the other young guy I mentioned had to wait a month or so before he got a job. He's back in now though, on good money again.

 

I think sparkies are one of the few professions that will find work, it's definitely taking a bit longer but there is work out there. May get worse, may get better, may level out at this for a while.

 

Wouldn't base my experience of one week flying in from the UK though.

 

 

Apologies Paul, sorry but this is what I did and hopefully I might of actually got some benefit with regards employment for what I did. I don't really want to justify to you what I did but this was planned quite a while in advance and was told this would benefit my chances. Time will tell whether it is, but I would rather get off my backside and try than sit around looking at a computer screen hoping someone might answer my Emails or applications. This reccie report was just to help others not deter them or influence them. Still there will always be people who try to knock you down. I just laugh at these small minded people!

[flag of convenience]

Having experienced the craziness of 2006 not abnormal the original poster would decide to check on conditions for himself. After all reading forums such as this conflicting views must lead to confusion.

Not hard to see the changes though. The big thing that strikes me is the rentals available now.

We had queues in my area until eighteen or so moths ago. I'm talking thirty odd people. Now its down to about four and still places seem to remain on the market a month or six weeks with price reductions.

Sadly house prices although down some 3%+ this year don't really reflect this decline in my area. They still seem to be ramping up the price. Many houses that went for under $400,000 in 2004 now seem to want $1.2 million, after a $250,000 (or thereabouts)refurbishment.

 

As for work, I'd say very competitive. Best know someone to enable a point of entry. This will become ever more important as jobs become scarcer as the mining boom further detracts. We in WA being so closely tied to the resource sector still have a way to go yet before things stabilise. Not great times to be in WA or coming without work or inside help or in an industry that is recession prove.

[WeegieDave]

Having experienced the craziness of 2006 not abnormal the original poster would decide to check on conditions for himself. After all reading forums such as this conflicting views must lead to confusion.

Not hard to see the changes though. The big thing that strikes me is the rentals available now.

We had queues in my area until eighteen or so moths ago. I'm talking thirty odd people. Now its down to about four and still places seem to remain on the market a month or six weeks with price reductions.

Sadly house prices although down some 3%+ this year don't really reflect this decline in my area. They still seem to be ramping up the price. Many houses that went for under $400,000 in 2004 now seem to want $1.2 million, after a $250,000 (or thereabouts)refurbishment.

 

As for work, I'd say very competitive. Best know someone to enable a point of entry. This will become ever more important as jobs become scarcer as the mining boom further detracts. We in WA being so closely tied to the resource sector still have a way to go yet before things stabilise. Not great times to be in WA or coming without work or inside help or in an industry that is recession prove.

 

Around 8500 vacant rental properties in the greater Perth area at the moment. I have a mate who has just moved into the CBD (Hay Street) and the rental agent (a fellow Glaswegian) told him that they cannot fill the properties anymore. There has been a massive exodus of people who worked in the Mining Infrastructure construction boom and the Oil and Gas boom such as Barrow Island and Wheatstone who are all heading to pastures new.

Lets not get confused though. It was never a mining boom. The mines are pumping out more ore than ever. It was a construction boom for new mines infrastrcture and a large part of the employment boom was also Oil and Gas projects on Barrow Island and Wheatstone. The end of the construction boom was always going to have casualties as it was slightly OTT and a lot of businesses started up during the boom but had absolutely no future business sustainability plans. It's almost as if they thought the boom was going to last forever. It is a period of correction. People will lose jobs that are no longer required related to the said industries and the knock on effect in hotels, car hire, plant hire, and general construction suppliers will be felt but it will all level out over the next couple of years and a bit of normaility will return to Perth and WA as a whole and it was probably needed to be fair. The boom created a massive greed culture!

I work in the construction and civil engineering industry in Perth and the work has dried up although the local authorities are still throwing cash about for capital works projects which is keeping me going at the moment. Some big project will be taking off in Perth over the next 18 months so the people that are prepared to dig in hard and not worry about how much they are being paid will do ok I reckon.

Changing times indeed but I look forward to some normality coming back to the state!

 

Edited to say: I wouldn't fancy being a new immigrant to Perth at the moment though!

Edited October 9, 2015 by WeegieDave

[Paul1Perth]

Paul

on a individual basi things can be good. For example, my best friend works in IT. Not in highflying London but for Next in Leiecester. He had the biggest bonuses of all time between 2008 and 2013. Yet there is no doubt the UK was in recession - and a severe one.

 

A number of friends were headhunted during the same period for big incomes (100k salaries). None lived in London.

 

I might be about to secure a $180k a year role in geo exploration. But we have 40% unemployment.

 

In the 1980's big recession in the UK. It hit steel producers massively. Yet, this was when my dad became "middle class". We had a nice house. A car and all the trappings.

 

Some me people escape downturns. But many do not.

 

Good luck with the job hunting VS. About time you had a change of luck.

[Paul1Perth]

Apologies Paul, sorry but this is what I did and hopefully I might of actually got some benefit with regards employment for what I did. I don't really want to justify to you what I did but this was planned quite a while in advance and was told this would benefit my chances. Time will tell whether it is, but I would rather get off my backside and try than sit around looking at a computer screen hoping someone might answer my Emails or applications. This reccie report was just to help others not deter them or influence them. Still there will always be people who try to knock you down. I just laugh at these small minded people!

 

I hope it works out for you mate and you get something out of it. If you are serious about emigrating though you aren't going to get much out of a week spent here and the cost would be horrendous. You are either serious about it or not and you would have been better just coming on whatever visa have got or can get and really giving it your best shot and spend some time here.

 

What would you think as an employment agent in the UK and someone flew in from Aus for a week and asked about jobs? It would be just the same as here, the agents don't want to waste their time with someone like that, they would rather spend a bit more with someone who lives here and looks like they are serious.

[Paul1Perth]

Around 8500 vacant rental properties in the greater Perth area at the moment. I have a mate who has just moved into the CBD (Hay Street) and the rental agent (a fellow Glaswegian) told him that they cannot fill the properties anymore. There has been a massive exodus of people who worked in the Mining Infrastructure construction boom and the Oil and Gas boom such as Barrow Island and Wheatstone who are all heading to pastures new.

Lets not get confused though. It was never a mining boom. The mines are pumping out more ore than ever. It was a construction boom for new mines infrastrcture and a large part of the employment boom was also Oil and Gas projects on Barrow Island and Wheatstone. The end of the construction boom was always going to have casualties as it was slightly OTT and a lot of businesses started up during the boom but had absolutely no future business sustainability plans. It's almost as if they thought the boom was going to last forever. It is a period of correction. People will lose jobs that are no longer required related to the said industries and the knock on effect in hotels, car hire, plant hire, and general construction suppliers will be felt but it will all level out over the next couple of years and a bit of normaility will return to Perth and WA as a whole and it was probably needed to be fair. The boom created a massive greed culture!

I work in the construction and civil engineering industry in Perth and the work has dried up although the local authorities are still throwing cash about for capital works projects which is keeping me going at the moment. Some big project will be taking off in Perth over the next 18 months so the people that are prepared to dig in hard and not worry about how much they are being paid will do ok I reckon.

Changing times indeed but I look forward to some normality coming back to the state!

 

Edited to say: I wouldn't fancy being a new immigrant to Perth at the moment though!

 

Lot of sense there Weegie. Fully agree with you on a lot of points. Thing is with immigrants now is they have sites like this and the internet to make them worry and second think themselves. They might have started the journey a year or so ago, joined this site at the same time and are now having second thoughts based on what they are reading. While it's good to do research it's also important not to lose sight of a dream.

 

When we thought about emigrating we didn't have the internet and sites like this to constantly check and give us doubts, we had plenty of people tell us we were crazy and what were we thinking, both in good jobs, first house, mortgage, two year old and no jobs to come to, just a permanent visa.

 

To be honest all we thought about was we managed to get jobs in recessions in the UK and we would be able to do the same in Aus, things would work out. In fact we were told not to come to Perth by the one and only recruitment agent I contacted, said go to Sydney or Melbourne as that was where the jobs were.:cry:

 

We had our hearts set on Perth though for the climate and lifestyle we thought it would give us and jobs were really a secondary concern, as daft as that may seem to some.

 

I didn't bother contacting anyone else and we went with our gut feeling and our first choice of Perth, recession or not. We were both 100% committed though, excited and confident something would come our way eventually.

 

Maybe we were just nieve and lucky, but I prefer to think we worked pretty hard for where we've got. Whether we would have made a go of it in Sydney or Melbourne I don't know. Having visited I like Sydney but to have the lifestyle we have here it would cost a lot more, it's too busy too. Melbourne the weather, climate and beaches wasn't what we wanted and having visited there too I'm glad we came to Perth.:cool:

 

If I had a dream to emigrate I wouldn't let anything like people posting on a website put me off, no matter how negative they were. But I was around before the internet age and don't rely on it for anything, even now.

[Jessica Berry]

I have met a few people who have come over on a reccie for a short period and asked if I would be willing to chat to them (just to put it in context I have a background in migrant career advice, HR, recruitment) about their work possibilities and the standard of living they could achieve in Adelaide. Some people are looking for an independent view point, rather than someone who just wants to sell them a dream. In my experience these people often have high standards of living in their respective countries and are in two minds about giving that up and want to come over to Australia and see for themselves before they take that leap.

[flag of convenience]

Around 8500 vacant rental properties in the greater Perth area at the moment. I have a mate who has just moved into the CBD (Hay Street) and the rental agent (a fellow Glaswegian) told him that they cannot fill the properties anymore. There has been a massive exodus of people who worked in the Mining Infrastructure construction boom and the Oil and Gas boom such as Barrow Island and Wheatstone who are all heading to pastures new.

Lets not get confused though. It was never a mining boom. The mines are pumping out more ore than ever. It was a construction boom for new mines infrastrcture and a large part of the employment boom was also Oil and Gas projects on Barrow Island and Wheatstone. The end of the construction boom was always going to have casualties as it was slightly OTT and a lot of businesses started up during the boom but had absolutely no future business sustainability plans. It's almost as if they thought the boom was going to last forever. It is a period of correction. People will lose jobs that are no longer required related to the said industries and the knock on effect in hotels, car hire, plant hire, and general construction suppliers will be felt but it will all level out over the next couple of years and a bit of normaility will return to Perth and WA as a whole and it was probably needed to be fair. The boom created a massive greed culture!

I work in the construction and civil engineering industry in Perth and the work has dried up although the local authorities are still throwing cash about for capital works projects which is keeping me going at the moment. Some big project will be taking off in Perth over the next 18 months so the people that are prepared to dig in hard and not worry about how much they are being paid will do ok I reckon.

Changing times indeed but I look forward to some normality coming back to the state!

 

Edited to say: I wouldn't fancy being a new immigrant to Perth at the moment though!

 

Pretty much what I have ben saying. Except I believe the numbers on the market have passed the 8,500 level reported on the ABC. Additional stock every week is coming onto the market. Two 'new 'For Lease signs in my area to add to the several already in a rather small area. Others of course don't bother with signs outside so wouldn't be immediately recognisable as 'on the market'.

 

The mines are indeed pumping out more ore than ever at far lesser prices of course. Not the greatest business selling more for ever less profit. Although it may have the effect of running smaller competitors out of business. May well be a desired outcome. But yes a look on the AIS map will show a constant flow of traffic in the form ore carriers to Port Hedland and Dampier.

 

No we are not getting confused. The state/nation milked the boom for all it was worth apart from adequate returns to coffers that a proper destitution of wealth shipped out should have returned. No way this state should be in the economic condition it now finds itself after the biggest 'boom' its history.

 

I like your choice of the word 'normality'. But just how will that look with out a massive housing collapse ? Housing remains way over priced with many real estate agents refusing to recognise the new reality. Prices in my area continue to rise. Rents fall.

It should be remembered housing and construction was the area to take up the slack in resources. Population inflow has declined dramatically in WA this year further damping the housing market. Will Overseas buyers impact to the extent they are on the Sydney/ Melbourne/ Brisbane markets? Probably not. Chinese prefer the East Coast but there is some Malaysian/Singaporean activity (being closer) although saying that my bank manager mentioned eighteen months ago the Chinese activity on the market and aggressiveness about it. I thought at the time he was referring to migrants though.

 

The so called' period of correction', is another term I like. Does this mean all the excess, greed and party like no tomorrow will come to an end? Will Perth recapture its former position as the' branch office' somewhat remote from the real influence and power? Will we be able to return to the less frantic, more comfortable times when could afford to eat out three nights a week? Go to a pub and pay a respectable price for a pint? Pay Melbourne prices for a simple coffee? Will this be the end of the attached special Perth price?

 

Some big projects over the next eighteen months? Are you sure? My reckoning is what and how will take up the slack as major city projects conclude. 2017 will be a very interesting time for WA and likely Australia in general.

 

All migrants probably need to take heed of changing conditions. What and how Perth will manage will be challenging. Resource booms come and go and are beyond control. Even tourism is not keeping up the growth of the East Coast market. A sure growth in times of falling dollar.