With a push from Griffith City Council to attract people to relocate to the city, four newcomers share their experience of the realities experienced when moving to Griffith.
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The launch of a new website called ‘Griffith Now Hiring’ is part of a marketing campaign to attract people to the city in order to keep up with business growth and job vacancies.
However despite Griffith’s need for both skilled and unskilled workers, other factors including the housing crisis and health services impact on the realities of attracting fresh blood.
Nick Ricucci, Laura Speroni, Stefano Turolla and Micol Polo have come to Griffith within the last year after relocating from Italy.
The four share their thoughts on housing, health and employment, and whether they think the reality of what Griffith has to offer is as advertised.
Employment
While moving here before the implementation of the new website, the group say for anyone looking for work who were already living in town it would be useful.
“If I wanted to look for other work now I am here, I would definitely use the website,” Mikol said.
“However to attract people from outside of the town, there should be some connection to Seek or LinkedIn for professionals, because that is where we mainly look for work.”
Nick said recent job vacancies at his place of employment were difficult to fill, because prospective applicants from out of town were deterred by how far away Griffith was from the major cities.
“I can’t speak for the other careers, but for IT it was difficult to get someone with the right qualifications to come here,” Nick explained.
Housing
The housing crisis in Griffith has been plaguing newcomers, real estate agents and Council alike, and Laura said they were lucky in their search.
“We were staying in a motel for the first month of coming to Griffith,” she said.
“We found a share house to move into after that, however that was just luck. Looking on the real estate sites, there wasn’t really much of anything.
“We weren’t fussy where we went. If we were looking for something specific, we would still be looking I think.”
Health
Mikol says that compared to Italy, Griffith’s health care is far superior.
“In Italy, we would have to wait almost 24 hours in an emergency service… here I have had to go twice and both times I was seen and done in an hour,” Mikol said.
Do you have a different story to tell about your experience in moving to Griffith? Let us know by emailing jacinta.dickins@fairfaxmedia.com.au
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