Smashing jobs but panel shop beaten in search for staff

IT’S NOT hard for David Deicke to find good staff – it’s impossible.
The Smash Masters proprietor has advertised for panel beaters, spray painters and assemblers – as apprentices and qualified tradesmen – across the region for months but can’t get any takers.
He’s advertised for staff in numerous newspapers and across multiple employment websites.
He’s advertised throughout Geelong, the Surf Coast, Werribee and Melton.
But all to no avail.
“I can’t work it out,’’ Mr Deicke told the Independent.
“I have 11 people presently working here and I’m looking for another 11.
“I’m the biggest panel shop in Geelong and I’m paying the best rates in Geelong but I feel like I’m in a little country town.’’
Mr Deicke said his work for RACV was mounting as he tried to find tradesmen for “who want to grow with the company’’ for long-term employment.
He believed panel repair staff were at a premium in Geelong.
“I get all these people who respond to the advertisements who say they’re currently working at other places. I offer them more than they get but then they go back to their boss and they offer them more to stay.”
The auto industry is not the only labour sector feeling the pinch of a tight jobs market in Geelong despite an unemployment rate in September of 7.1 per cent, the highest in more than five years.
The Independent revealed earlier this year that a council survey had found a shortage of almost 600 skilled workers in Geelong.
Employers had trouble filling 235 jobs and expected another 347 positions to be unfilled next year.
The survey covered 1400 business across five municipalities in the region.
GForce recruitment agency chief Robert Birch said demand for panel repair apprentices had not been high recently.
The broader building sector was generating more new jobs, he said.