End of an Era: Kyoto Amiga User's Group moving to Oz

[OSS542]

Greetings All.....

Some of you may have noticed my earlier post about being laid off.   I have been working as a systems engineer in support of "artificial life" and robotics research for thirteen years at the same company.  Unfortunately, times are no longer what they were, and I am forced to leave.  In addition, time has taken its toll and members have drifted away and moved on to Macs, Linux, and the like. There are only a couple (quite literally) of active members left.  (....The days we have seen....)

Anyway....

My good friend and founder of the user's group, also a member here, is also throwing in the towel in Japan and moving back to Oz.  He is a native Ozzie, but has been here in Japan something like twenty years.  My wife and I are going Oz with his family, and I will attempt to look for IT work there.  We will be going to Sydney for a week or two around Jan 7th to visit, and possibly to Melbourne and Cairns as well.  This will be our first trip to Oz, and we don't know Oz or Sydney at all, so if anyone there has any thoughts or suggestions, these would be most welcome.

[jmbattle]

I too am unfamiliar with the labour market in Australia, however I would just like to wish you the best of luck with your search for employment.

Take care,
James
x

[persia]

2009 has not been kind to Oz, unemployment is over 6% for the first time in years.  Sydney has always had the majority of IT jobs in the country, but has also has had the worst of recent layoffs.  Melbourne was a distant second followed by Brisbane.

Canberra is a lifestyle choice.  Cold (for Oz) Winters, Hot Summers, but working for the Federal Government has a lot of benefits.  

There are virtually no IT jobs outside the capital cities.  Gold Coast has rapid growth but a dearth of IT jobs, but has the best beaches.  Other cities the best bet is the Local council offices or universities, but you have to be extremely lucky to even get an interview.

Some areas like the NSW North Coast have a high concentration of people with IT experience and virtually no IT jobs.  A lot of IT folks in the bush make money opening a computer shop.  People like to take their computers locally for service and buy them locally.  It's not great money and there's no guarantee but it's a good choice for smaller centres.

[yakumo9275]

unless you have a valid work visa you can forget about finding work. its not like the uk or usa where you can easily get work under the table.

(I'm a melbourne boy, through and through)

[Sparky]

It's all doom and gloom down here, EDS have laid of bunches of people and so have a lot of the other US owned companies (thanks for buggering the worlds economy America! .. And thanks to the numpties in our countries who though the Americans were onto a good thing! :-)

India is doing ok out of it all, lot of roles being off shored to them ... they'll be back again in a few months mind as they realise the skill sets are imaginary over there (ever had to teach Windows 101 to an Indian Microsoft "specialist" over the phone ?  Quite enlightening .. FYI it was "How to upgrade a driver" ?!?!?!?

Hmmm .. now I'm ranting .. I'll tootle off back to my cave :-)

Mark