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GIVEN her choice of work, Belladonna-Rose Richards would become an apprentice tattoo artist.
But, for the moment, she’ll settle for just about any job.
The 27-year-old Bendigo job seeker has been actively looking for work for about five months.
Though she has been shortlisted for a few positions, Ms Richards has found even securing an interview to be a challenge.
“I apply for about 20 jobs a fortnight,” she said.
It can be disheartening, and Ms Richards said not everyone understood the challenges job seekers face.
“They don’t seem to really believe it’s that difficult [to find work],” she said.
But Member for Bendigo Lisa Chesters believes her electorate is in the grips of a jobs crisis.
“There just aren’t enough local jobs – less than 400 for close to 6000 job seekers,” she said.
She called on the federal government to create jobs and “real job opportunities, starting with 5000 across central Victoria.”
The region’s jobactive caseload was 5808 on June 30.
Almost 1200 of those people were aged under 25, 1625 were over the age of 50, and 286 people identified as Indigenous Australians.
“Too many older job seekers, parents, carers and younger Central Victorians are struggling to get back into paid work after becoming unemployed or taking time out of the workforce for study or caring responsibilities,” Ms Chesters said.
Though she can’t be sure why she has yet to secure a job, Ms Richards said the words ‘medical grounds’ elicited a particular response from prospective employers.
“They start getting this look on their face,” she said.
She left her first and only job after five months because she was medically unable to continue working.
Ms Richards is now fit to re-enter the workforce.
“I’ve met lots of job seekers with fantastic resumes and yet they can’t find any work in their field,” Ms Chesters said.
She claimed the federal government’s programs for job seekers were failing, and its approach towards people seeking work was both punitive and demonising.
“The Turnbull Government understands that the best form of welfare is a job,” a spokesperson for Minister for Employment Michaelia Cash responded.
The spokesperson cited Bendigo’s unemployment rate of 4.4 per cent, “which is below the national rate of 5.6 per cent.”
“Bendigo’s youth unemployment rate has decreased, dropping from 8.6 per cent in July 2016, to 6.9 per cent in July 2017.”
More than 6100 people in Bendigo secured work through jobactive in the past two financial years, the spokesperson said.
“These figures demonstrate that Ms Chester (sic) is only interested in talking down the local Bendigo economy for the sake of petty political point scoring,” they said.