Ireland could plug the gaps amid Bathurst's skilled worker shortage

With the help of Vivability chief executive officer (CEO) Nick Packham, Ireland relocation and recruitment company NexVentur is building contacts in Bathurst.

Senior recruiter Alan Daly visited Bathurst in early April and during that time met with representatives of the Bathurst Business Chamber and Bathurst Regional Council.

It was an opportunity to further discuss bringing Irish workers to Bathurst to boost the workforce of local businesses.

It is something Vivability is already doing, with it employing around half a dozen people from Ireland in various roles at the disability support provider.

"We're continuing to work with NexVentur in terms of placing people and we are very close to establishing our labour agreement through the Department of Home Affairs so we can have a steady flow of people who work in our sector," Mr Packham said.

"We know we are still 80,000 people short across the country and it continues to grow as a sector."

NexVentur recruits Irish and UK candidates moving to Australia, helping them with their visas, flights, tax file number, bank accounts and, importantly, finding employment.

Mr Daly said there are a lot of Irish people eager to move to Australia for a better lifestyle.

"There's a huge interest to come to Australia," he said.

"Some of the reasons why people are leaving Ireland and the UK: it's a better lifestyle, better wages, better standard of living."

Mr Daly specialises in recruitment for the construction industry and works with companies right across Australia.

"We're looking to break into the regional NSW area, including Bathurst," he said.

"We'd love to do a bit of work and maybe help people move from the cities out to regional areas.

"With the candidates in Ireland and the UK, just with Ireland, for their visa they need to do either three months or six months regional work in order to get their next year visa, so that's where we might see benefit.

"We have good, qualified people in the cities that need to come out to areas, for example, Bathurst, to extend their visa."

It's a good time for NexVentur to be having these conversations, as there are a lot of major construction projects in the pipeline for Bathurst and the surrounds.

These include the new Windy 1100 subdivision, the $200 million upgrade to the public hospital, the McPhillamy's gold mine, and the proposed Bathurst Integrated Medical Centre (BIMC).

Council's economic development manager, David Flude, said Bathurst has a very low unemployment rate, which is good for residents, but challenging for businesses wanting to grow.

Meeting with NexVentur gives the economic development team another point of contact it can refer companies to when they contact the council inquiring about potential labour sources.

"By no means does council get involved in these things, but we do have an interest in making sure that construction that comes to town can be achieved, and certainly labour at the moment is a hard one for many businesses to try to fill additional jobs, let alone the current jobs they have at present," Mr Flude said.

Business chamber board member Sam Forbutt said the chamber has heard about the worker shortage from its members.

He thinks the service NexVentur offers could help address the problem.

"One of the number one issues that businesses are having is finding and attracting staff, but also retaining staff," he said.

"This I think is just another good opportunity, or another point of contact they can go to to try to find those highly-skilled staff when they've exhausted other options."

While each case is different, NexVentur has proven it can get staff from Ireland to Australia in a matter of weeks.

This has been the experience of Vivability.

"We needed someone. We got a referral from Kenny [Feeney], who's the owner of NexVentur. We spoke about a candidate and then interviewed her online," Mr Packham said.

"She was in the country within a week and she was here [at Vivability] within two, so it was a two-week turnaround for us."