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Is Australia the land of opportunity?
Work opportunity in Australia.
Welcome to our article, Is Australia the land of opportunity?
Dear readers, when I came to Australia in the early sixties, there were good opportunities to work. So, in this article we are going to compare those opportunities.
So, let us start by telling you the
opportunities that we had when I came to Australia, to the opportunities that
we have today in Australia, and how those opportunities played a part in the
lives of those people that migrated to Australia.
Anyhow, I feel that today is different, but I suppose that every one of us feels different, Whether we are emigrant, or we have been born here we have our own story to tell, according to our life experiences and the work that we did; but let me tell you my personal story, so that you can see my own experience the same way as I have seen it, then compare it to today’s opportunities, if you like.
If I were to use only my personal experience
in Australia as a standard, we must say that Australia opportunities today
are not as good as they used to be, because things have changed. Now if we want to compare the fewer opportunities that are available
today, with what used to be available in the sixties, you can use my life
story, because I am going to write my life story, just the way I have seen things
happen to me and to other people that came to Australia in the early sixties, so, my life story opportunities can
be compared with what is available today.
Anyhow, everybody in the wide world thinks that Australia is still the land of opportunities, and that is the reason why people are trying to migrate to Australia. Having been an emigrant myself a long time ago, and being lucky to find some relative that helped me to settle in Australia, I know that migrating to another country is not an easy thing to do, especially if there is no one waiting for you and help you when you arrive, and it is even harder if you don’t speak the language of the country you are migrating to, but today there is a great movement of people throughout the world that migrate from one country to another, and a lot of people want to come to Australia, they even risk their lives during their journey, boarding unseaworthy boats that can break up and disintegrate in the ocean, and they can drown, because there is no help.
Looking at what is happening today, we know
that the entire world has problems with people migrating to other countries
like Australia. Here in Australia we are upset to see people coming in by
boats, and we want to stop them, or send them back where they came from. Now, I
need to say that in Europe is even worse with people coming in from North
Africa every day, they are so many that is hard to count them, and we guess and
say that the same amount of people that migrate illegally to Australia in a
year may migrate to Europe in a week or even less than that.
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But, is Australia still the land of opportunity?
If I use my personal experience as a
standard, then I can say that today in Australia
work opportunities are not
as good as they used to be. But then not everything is as it seems to me,
because my judgment is that of a single person and therefore, I might be wrong.
So, let us try to see what has changed since I came to Australia. There are many things that have changed since then; therefore, working opportunities have changed, so, today it is a lot harder to find a manual job; this is due to the fact that we do not need as many hands to do a job, because the hard labor is being done from machines, therefore, people that have no skills and rely on their physical strength to work are not required. For this reason, there are less jobs available, but if people have a trade or have studied there are working opportunities for them.
Now let me tell you my experience when I came
to Australia, because this is the way that we can compare the work opportunity
situation.
Today this sounds an impossible achievement,
but there have been times in Australia when everybody had a job, so, there was
no unemployment at all, from stories that I have been told from people that
were already here when I came, there have been times that the employers had not
enough employees and they would go down to the wharfs when the ships arrived
and select a few people that seemed good enough for them to do their jobs,
therefore, in those days there were no unemployed people, but unfortunately
those times do not last long, as I said working opportunities go up and down.
Now to compare those times with today’s’ opportunities, we are going to describe part of my own life story, so, let us see what opportunities were available then.
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What sort of opportunities were available in Australia?
When I arrived in Australia in March 1961 my
relative and friends were all working, at the same time they were telling me
that there were not many job vacancies available, so, I had to be patient until
a job was available. But what sort of work I could do they were not sure just
we had to wait and see, what I knew about working for other people was that if
a job was offered to me I had to work hard, since in my country when we hired
workers to work in our family farm, we expected them to work hard so that they
would earn their pay, therefore, I was in my right frame of mind to go out and
work hard, whatever job was offered would do me just fine. I have said this,
because it is necessary to understand that whoever attempts to migrate to
another country, he/she must be ready to work hard if they want to succeed, and
it all boils down to this, you need to do a fair work day for fair daily
pay.
Beside my willingness to work I was also
young and fit enough to do any manual job that I was offered, the only problem
was that I didn't speak English, I had learned perhaps a few words on the way
to Australia while we were sailing, as there was an English teacher on the ship
for that purpose. But as we know English is a hard language to learn,
especially if one comes from a country that their language is phonetic and once
you know some rules, one can read from a book and come close to the sound how
those written words are pronounced, but English is not written phonetically, so,
to learn English one must be exposed to the English speaking people and slowly
learn from them, so, I and other emigrant like me had a lot to learn, before we
could speak English well enough to look after ourselves, and to fit in the
Australian speaking community.
Anyhow, let us tell you that although I had
very little English, things turned out all right in the end, perhaps this is
another reason why people think that Australia is still the land of
opportunities.
For me when I came to Australia I was thinking that I was on my own, so, I had to find my own way around, but here I had a pleasant surprise when for the first time some relative took me to see the unemployment office.
In Italy when you go to an Italian office if
you want something done quickly you need to know somebody in there, otherwise
before your turn comes the office hours are over and you have to come back the
day after, so, I was wondering how could we succeed in these Australian
offices, since I didn’t speak English and my friend was just a little bit
better than me.
Anyhow we waited our turn and soon we were
being interviewed from this middle aged man that seemed to have so much
patience and understanding of the situation, he slowly worked out what we
wanted by asking and repeating what we did not understand, and he noted
everything down as he asked me many things to see what sort of job I could do,
I remember even now that one of his questions was if I were afraid of heights
and I said no, as I was going up some tall trees to prune them, he also asked
if I knew anything about building or building maintenance, here again I said
yes as we sometimes repair some farm building. I believe that these two things
gave me the first job in the building industry, as I was called one day to go
to work for the
first time in Australia. My first job was that of a
bricklayer labor, and we were working on a chimney stack in the brickworks
where bricks are made, which I managed to hold for a couple of weeks, until a
bigger gang came and I became a bit confused in the middle of all those people,
and I lost my first job for lack of knowledge or lack of understanding English.
But anyhow I had my first work experience and I was sure that soon there was
going to be another one.
Anyhow, I need to say that Australia is a great country to be in, because people are given their opportunities as they deserve, if you are willing to work hard for it. And in the unemployment offices the officers are just great people to deal with. Well, it was like when I came to Australia, today things might be a bit different.
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Australia building industry.
Anyhow, my first job in Australia was
in the building industry, because I ended up working as a bricklayer’s labor,
but I lost that job for a couple of reasons. I believe that I lost the first
job, because I didn’t know English and at the same time, I had no experience in
the sort of work we were doing, and for that reason I could not guess what they
wanted me to do next. After that I had another job which ended very much the
same way; but then one day suddenly a small Italian builder needed a labor and
he knew that I was available, so, he came to fetch me and asked if I would be
interested to work for him, and this is how I ended up working in the building
industry, I worked for this builder for about two years, but then he went on
holiday to Italy for a long time, therefore, he temporary closed down the
business, but by then the Italian building community new about me, so, in a few
days I had another job to go to, always in the building industry with another
builder or contractors working as a bricklayer labor.
You see in those times there was work for people wanting to work, but we had to work hard because there was a lot of competition going on, so, what could we say if we work hard for it, we would always find somebody that would give us work, because we earned our wage plus a bit more for the employer. This is how I understood the ways of earning your living in this capitalist society, which is based on competition and you are paid with what you deliver.
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Compare the old ways with the new
Here we want to compare we want to compare what we had to do to come to Australia in the sixties, with what is happening today with illegal emigration, to spot the reasons why things don’t work as good as they used to work.
You see, when I and the other emigrants
wanted to come to Australia during the sixties, we had to be screened before we
could have a visa that would allow us to come to Australia and work.
This screening was strict, as they did not
want anybody that could become sick, so, we had to go through a medical check,
and there was another stricter check about being legally of good character,
even if you had ever had trouble with the police, in fact, they were so strict
about this that if one had been involved with the communist party, by saying
that you would vote for the communist party, you would not be allowed to come
to Australia.
I hope that I have explained how strict they
were then, before they gave you a visa to come to work in Australia. Anyhow, I can
say that this screening the emigrants was a good thing after all, because after
that it was a lot easier when you were in Australia, since they knew everything
that they needed to know, so, the authorities were more relaxed. As I have said,
when I went to the unemployment office even though I did not speak much English
they did everything possible to find me a job, and if they could not find us a
job soon enough, they would pay us the unemployment benefit.
Anyhow, from my own experience, I can say
that anyone
that has come and seen Australia the same way that I have seen it, they know that Australia is a
great country to live in; and if there is somebody that does not like
Australia, it must be because they have their own personal problems and they
are home sick, or they are unwilling to work hard.
Today Australia does not seem to be as good as it was when I came to Australia, because there are more unemployed people, and it is hard for people to find permanent work. But in my eyes, it is still okay, you need to be more patient until you find a job.
Now, because today a lot of things are different, most of all the difference that exists between screened legal emigrant, and those emigrants that come illegally and the authorities don’t know anything about them. So, a comparison between these emigrants is not possible. Therefore, measuring the opportunities that exist is not possible either.
Now, let me add this, even today there are some work opportunities in Australia, but you have to work in the rural areas, they always want fruit picker and other workers. But this is not a permanent job.
Anyhow this article is becoming too long, so, see you next time with another article called; Australian building industry, where we will be continuing to tell you my life story and what I have done in Australia to earn a living.
To see more click on this link, Is Australia the land of opportunity?
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