Showcasing the opportunities that are available to Southland youth, Great South’s career explorations programme Southland Youth Futures has partnered with Invercargill Central to host fortnightly tours of the CBD redevelopment worksite
The tours, which will be held every fortnight for different groups of secondary students, highlight the career pathways available into construction, design, graduate roles, trades, retail, and administration sectors.
The first group to take part in the tour were Youth Guarantee students and tutors from Front-line Training Consultancy. The tour participants were given an overview of the site's progress before visiting the Inner City Hub information centre to hear a series of career talks.
This included presentations from Invercargill Central Project Director, Geoff Cotton, Project Manager and former builder Hayden Rankin, Demolition Health and Safety Manager Di Rizzi, and Heritage NZ Archaeologist Victoria Ross.
Project Director Geoff Cotton said the CBD redevelopment brings with it significant employment opportunities for the region.
"It is anticipated that there will be up to 400 construction workers on-site at the peak of redevelopment and a similar number working off-site to manufacture the required components. Then once local subcontractors are appointed there will be an even broader range of employment opportunities, with about 20% of those being new jobs to Invercargill," he said.
Further highlighting the employment opportunities that will exist outside of the construction sector, Cotton said that once complete there would be between 300-350 people working in the new complex and approximately 40% of these would be new positions.
The CBD tour partnership is just one of the initiatives that the Southland Youth Futures programme is coordinating to build stronger connections across the region between education and employment.
This includes hosting employer talks in schools, coordinating workplace visits and helping to develop pre-employment skills and career exploration opportunities for Southland youth.
The Southland Youth Futures team, from left Pat Hoffmann, Renata Gill, Allison Beckham and Jan Ormsby