Luke Kirkness: Job market reveals what some unemployed people are lacking

Hard work and initiative are key to making opportunities. Photo / 123rf

OPINION:

Life is hard but can be made easier when you make the most of opportunities presented to you.

Often opportunities are handed down to you by your parents but the greatest ones are, in my opinion, the ones you make for yourself.

And almost always, the greatest are earned after hard work but where that fails, initiative takes its place.

Initiative is defined as the power - or opportunity - to act or take charge before others do, or it's the ability to assess and initiates things independently.

That's something two young men who featured in the Rotorua Daily Post Weekend and Bay of Plenty Times Weekend on Saturday clearly know more than others.

Tama Bidois was on the dole after an employment opportunity in Australia fell through when he got a text from the Ministry for Social Development about a programme. It got Bidois into a course where he got his forklift licence and learned team building. From there, he was offered a roofing apprenticeship.

Teagan Gregg didn't fit into the school system so he got his dream job the old-fashioned way - by knocking on the door of a business and speaking to the owner.

I'm betting Bidois and Gregg had no idea what they were getting themselves in for but they used their initiative and it landed them on their feet.

Some who follow their initiative don't succeed but that's where hard work comes into it. They keep trying until it pays off.

Most people doing well for themselves got there through hard work, initiative and taking opportunities. Those who are born into wealth or opportunities are only there because of the things their family members did before them but who can blame them?

In December, there were 11,655 people on jobseeker support (work ready) in the Bay of Plenty compared to 6798 in December 2016.

Not everyone receiving the support benefit faces the same situation but as we also found out on Saturday, job listings in the wider Bay of Plenty are growing at the moment.

According to Trade Me's latest quarter, Tauranga had a 42 per cent increase compared with the same period the year before; Rotorua had a 24 per cent increase.

There are jobs out there and there are people who want them. But, of course, there are also people who don't.

Something needs to be done to address this issue, and I suggest the problem is a lack of hard work and showing initiative. If we can figure out how to instil those qualities in more people, which can be a difficult task for some to learn, we'll take steps in the right direction.