Maryborough employment forum aims to generate jobs

Employment Minister Grace Grace and Member for Maryborough Bruce Saunders will meet with Wide Bay business and community leaders today to discuss ideas to generate employment opportunities for local people.

Ms Grace said more needed to be done to improve employment outcomes for Wide Bay residents and support businesses to grow and prosper.

“Today’s forum will bring together business and community leaders to work out more ways of getting Wide Bay people back to work,” she said.

“It will take all of us working together to lower Wide Bay’s unemployment rate from 9.9 per cent to closer to the State’s two-year low average of 6.1 per cent, in trend terms.

“The Palaszczuk Government’s economic plan is all about creating jobs for Queenslanders and it’s vitally important we focus on regions like Wide Bay.

“Youth and regional unemployment remain priority areas for the government and we’re working hard to achieve better employment outcomes for young people and regions.

“Our accelerated works program is all about providing jobs and employment opportunities for locals.

“It’s why we brought forward $36 million in capital works for the Wide Bay region under our accelerated works program.”

Member for Maryborough Bruce Saunders said projects included in the accelerated works program for the Wide Bay region are:

• $2 million for the replacement Childers Fire Station;
• $3 million for school maintenance works across the region;
• $31 million for Queensland Rail works at the North Coast Line South, and Tamaree to Parana Rerailing.

“We’re interested to work with local business and community leaders to understand how we can capitalise on growth in industries like health care, accommodation and professional services,” Mr Saunders said.

“We will continue to listen and provide opportunities for Queensland businesses, local government and the community to tell us what they need to support more Queenslanders getting jobs, including here in Maryborough.

“Since the election, 6,800 jobs have been created in the Wide Bay region but we know we need to do more and we are doing more.”

More than 70,000 jobs have been created across Queensland since the election and the State Government’s $10 billion infrastructure program in the current budget is supporting 27,000 jobs.

Media Contact: Martin Philip 0427 919 548