Muriel Willem: Whangarei New Focus Career Guidance Service founder on the rising number on the Jobseeker benefit, barriers to work

A variety of barriers still exist for some people looking for work.  

The number of people on the Job Seeker benefit increased by 8,000 in the September quarter to sit at 70,000.  

Whangarei New Focus Career Guidance Service founder Muriel Willem says some people are missing skills in areas like computers.  

She told Mike Hosking that at the moment, even people without those barriers are finding it tough.  

Willem says that's because there just aren't that many jobs out there. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So as the jobless numbers rise, new approach to deal
with the benefits and beneficiaries. The idea is to have
individual job plans to help get people back to work. Now,
Muriel Willem is with Career guid and Service New Focus
and as well as Muriel.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Morning, Good morning Mike.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
The sort of advice you offer is what they wouldn't
ordinarily have.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Anyway, Sorry, sorry I couldn't hear you.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
What sort of advice would you offer that they wouldn't
have normally?

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Anyway, that they wouldn't normally have.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Yeah, when a person comes to you who doesn't have
a job, what sort of advice are you able to
offer them that they don't have?

Speaker 2 (00:35):
As a professional? Okay, So as trends professionals, it's counseling.
The first pass is the counseling and then we move
into the career focused approach. So within the counseling, you've got,
you know, we able to address all the mental health issues,
the the other work based issues that people may have had,

(00:58):
maybe with bullying, with being made with and we still
people really suffering from that post COVID effects, with not
being able to get back on the horse, and those
are the skills that we have as strength professionals to
be able to address with our clients.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
You deal with the hardcore into the market. In other words,
a lot of people lose their jobs they just simply
go out and get another one. These are people who
for whatever reason can't.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah, there is definitely a lot of that. Definitely there's
some barriers there. If people go to a courage practitioner,
that's because they need some extra support in saying that,
those who may not feel that way are still finding
it really challenging because there's just not many jobs out there.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
No, that's although it's important to point out at the
moment that no one gets pinged or sanctioned for not
having a job. The sanction is for people who are
not looking for a job how much of its skills base.
They just don't have skills.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
I think that those they get pained generally. I mean,
clearly speaking, I would say that the majority of the
people that we work with they want a job. So
you've got people who have been unemployed for a long time,
they don't have for example, they might have been left
behind in terms of the computer skills, and that's an

(02:20):
area where MSD potentially will be able to support them.
But then we've got issues with people who don't have transport,
they don't have a reliable cow, they need to receive
the license, and all those issues are they become quite
major because we don't have the systems to allow for
all that to happen and people to go relatively quickly

(02:41):
back into employment.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
Well that's the difficulty. I suppose that then comes to
life skills, doesn't it and how much you want to
fix for yourself as opposed to relying on other people
to do it. Murial, appreciate your insight. Muriel William with
the Career Guard and Service and funder rate. For more
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