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Welcome to our blog, affordable rentals
and this post, Australia the land of opportunity
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But, is Australia still the land of opportunity?
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Even today a lot of people believe that Australia is still the lucky country and the land of opportunities, I believe that it is still a good country to live in, but how does it compare with the old Australian way of life of the sixties and there about, which is the time when I came to Australia.
In Australia early in the sixties there was work in the building, so, if you were strong and willing to work hard, you would easily find work on the building sites.
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Some type of brickwork we used to do in the sixties, what is shown here is a brick-base, which most likely would have a timber house on it. The Australian building industry has been slowly changing in Australia, from timber houses to part brick and part timber house, and today there are house that are mostly built with bricks and mortar.
But, is Australia still the land of opportunity?
Dear readers, this post is the continuation of our previous post called,
work opportunity in Australia, where we would like to compare the old
opportunities that we had in the sixties or there about and the opportunities
that exist today; so, in this case we would have to ask; is Australia still the
land of opportunities?
Now, if I have to use my own personal experience as a standard, then I
have to say that today in Australia work
opportunities are not as good as they used to be. But then not everything is or
might be as it seems to me, because my judgement is that of a single person and
therefore I might be wrong.
Anyhow let us try to see what has changed since I came to Australia in
the sixties. There are many things that have changed since then, because of the
progress humanity has made and continues to make even today; therefore working
opportunities have also changed a lot, so today it is a lot harder to find a
manual job; this is due to the fact that today we do not need as many hands to
do a job as we used to in the past, because a lot of the hard labour is being
done from machines, therefore people that have no skills and rely only on their
physical strength are not in high demand, for this reason there are a lot less
jobs available for these people, but if people have a trade or have studied
there may well be opportunities for them.
Now that we have explained how we see today working opportunities, allow
me to go back to the days when I came to Australia, so that I could tell you
what sort of opportunities existed then, and after that we might be able to
compare with what opportunities are available today.
In order to understand what we are going to say next, it is important
also to know that economies and for that matter opportunities for jobs have
high and lows of their own, therefore this effects everybody around that are
looking for work.
Now if you do not mind let me tell you my own experience when I came to
Australia, because this is probably the only way that we might be able to
compare the work opportunity situation, while at the same time, I would be
telling you my life story that could also be used to compare with today ways of
living.
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 are rare and did 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 to you hereunder part of my own life story, and therefore, what I
found easy or hard to cope with when I came here, and then how I was able to
cope with the hardship of those times and the way that those things became
solved, as this is the only way that I
know how to measure, whether Australia is still the land of
opportunities, so let us see what sorts of opportunities were available then.
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What sort of opportunities were available in Australia in the sixties
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 readily available, so, I had to be patient until a job would be
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 some
workers to do some work in our family farm, we would aspect 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 that 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 all know English is a very 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 somehow come close to the sound that 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 as you can see 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, now let us tell you that although I had very little English
somehow everything turned out all right in the end, perhaps this is another
reason why people think that Australia is still the land of opportunities, we
think it is based on the assumption that because people before us have been
able to succeed, we will be able to succeed as well.
For me when I came to Australia I was still thinking the Italian ways,
so, I was thinking that I was on my own and 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
whole 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 would be able to 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 would
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 on a chimney stack in the brickworks where bricks are
made, which somehow 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.
Before I close this page and start another one, I really want to say
that Australia is/was a great country to be in, just because people are given
their opportunities as they deserve, as long as they are willing to work hard
for what they deserve.
And in the unemployment offices the officers are just great people to
deal with, or at least they were when I came to Australia. I am going to
continue this article and talk about how I ended up working in the Australian
building industry for good.
But I believe that this post is becoming too long, so I will continue
this same issue in our next post, where we are going to talk about, working in
the Australian building industry. See, you next time.
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Affordable Rentals
Australia the land of opportunity
IS TO BE CONTINUED;
Next time with, Australian building industry
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