19 December 2006

What friggin' IT people shortage?!

Hot in the news today is how Canberra are looking for outside help in getting skilled workers to the city:
The ACT Government has begun linking Canberra employers with job seekers in the United Kingdom and Ireland to ease the city's skills shortage. The move is part of the Live in Canberra campaign.
What friggin' skills shortage? I've been urgently looking for a job for over a month, and I've got absolutely nothing in this city so far. Zilch. Nada. And no, it's not that I haven't got skills (in fact, I've got two job offers from overseas [one of them finalised; we're currently working out figures to see if we can afford it], and a couple of prospects in Sydney), it's that I'm not one of those who's sold their soul to J2EE, best-practices, and PRINCE2 which plague the government sector, nor am I an Australian citizen which seems to be a prequisite there, although I'm pressed to understand how workers imported from UK and Ireland would go better in that regard.

Notice that this is part of the "Live in Canberra" campaign which I'm pretty sure doesn't include information about them closing 39 schools this and next year, so if you've got kids, living in Canberra is a bit of a challenge these days, to put it mildly. The ACT local government is really poorly run, nobody here likes them. heck, people are even looking to liberal government, because, if Labour can only measure things in dollars and cents, we might as well go with those who's got a good track record in that departement to do it. (In the past, Labour actually had values, but Jon Stanhopeless' government is prioritizing a 8 million dollar dragway and a 6 million dollar arboretum in a friggin' drought area over keeping local schools and communities. Go figure.)

Can you tell I'm upset?

2 comments:

  1. Sorry to hear you're having to job-search. (I'm out of touch ... the library work fell through?) But glad to see your sense of humour is holding up.

    I'm writing today because someone left an anonymous comment to a post where I'd mentionned your blog ... almost a year ago.

    Odd world it is, oh yes oh yes.

    stay well

    BTW: the yuppies kidz at google have totally confounded my accounts with their "beta" program. This is not "ben" but "hfx_ben" of http://mozdawg.blogspot.com

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