Back to Work Funding – Why every school leaver should gain employment

In under a minute, I want to share with you why every school leaver in Cairns has the opportunity to be gainfully employed. I really mean that. We’ve gotten like 2,000 school leavers leaving high school this week, next week and the following week, and we know statistically that the unemployment in Cairns, the youth unemployment is sitting in about 26%. A lot of our youth that is going to go out into the workplace and be disenchanted about the opportunities of actually gainfully gaining employment.
I’m here to tell you that that is not the case. I don’t know if you saw this but just last week there was a media release that was sent out from the Premier and Minister for the Arts. It looks something like this. I will read this out to you, but this is part of the back to work scheme. If you haven’t heard about the back to work scheme, it’s something that you should definitely look at if you’re in Queensland and if you’re in regional Queensland.
The back to work scheme is funding for Queensland business owners to employ people, that’s one lot of the bucket of funding. The media release I’m just talking about was issued last week, it talks about how the back to work funding will be doubled for those business owners that employ youth between the age of 15 and 24.

How the back to work funding works (you can google it and get all this information out there, I just think that a lot of people need to be aware of what this money can do for your business) is that when somebody is unemployed or not employed for four weeks, they don’t need to be on unemployment benefits, they don’t need to be registered with the job seeker. The government is giving businesses $10,000 or up to $15,000 depending on the type or the length of their unemployment in order to engage their services. That can be their part-time or full-time.
From what I believe, and my son just did this, you can actually access this money after the employee has been with you for a month then you would get 40% of that money. Ideally, if it’s $10,000 and they have been with you for three months then you will get, after a month of being there, I hope you’re still with me, you will get $4,000 [inaudible 00:02:26] whatever that is.
Under this media release, it states that the back to work funding, that pool of money I was just explaining to you has been doubled. That means it’s been doubled up to $20,000. You’re thinking, “Well, that’s well and good. How do I employ a school labor if I don’t have a position valuable for them?” I also know statistically speaking that only 30% of businesses are actually or have a social media presence. I did the sums and there’s something like 12,876 businesses that were registered in setting the census a few years ago.
If only 30% of those businesses have social media platforms, only 2% of them are doing it really well. What I mean by really well is I mean that they’re actually getting a return on their investment. For Cairns, that means they’re over 12,000 businesses that are actually not doing social media really well. I’m not saying that you’re not doing it well, I’m just saying that you possibly don’t have a return on your investment or a strategy in place.
That being said, if we’ve got 280 businesses that are doing it well or over 12,000 that aren’t and we’ve got 2,000 school leavers, there is a great opportunity for you to employ a school a labor to work with you part-time. I guarantee, if you spent 20 hours dedicated to your business using social media and implementing a strategy, you will see a massive return on your investment, and your increase sales and marketing and leads. If you did that and the government is giving you this funding, why wouldn’t you?
Because you’re actually getting those wages paid or proportion of those wages paid and you’re actually increasing your sales and then you’ll be able to employ the student for a lot longer. They’re not a student anymore, they’re school leavers. I know that you’re probably also thinking that’s so well and good, but what do they know about social media? That’s true, we know that the youth are very [inaudible 00:04:29] with their mobile devices, and snap chatting and Facebook, but do they really know how to implement social media on how to help your business? That’s where I come into the picture.
We are offering through and RTO that I’m working with a Certificate III in Business Contextualised for Social Media . We’ve already got 30 plus students on the program, it’s a rolling intake so they can join us whenever they like. They get access to 10 workshops as well face-to-face. What does this mean for you as the business owner? I don’t know if you’ve already worked it out in your head yet, but as I’ve said there is no reason for any youth in Cairns to be unemployed.
You will be able to employ a student, a youth, a school leaver or someone between the age of 15 to 24. You will get a subsidy of up to $20,000 for their wages, no brainer. If they actually do the Certificate III in Social Media Contextualised in Business and they learn online, study online and come to our workshops here in Cairns, then they’re actually learning firsthand from myself and interacting with the other students how to do the right strategy for your business.
Therefore that course, you’re probably thinking, “Ah, yes, well that’s gonna cost something.” Yes, it will  cost something but it is also funded under the C3G scheme. For the eligible students or the eligible school leavers, and I can guarantee most of them, 90% of them would be eligible for this funding. That will only cost them $85. So, hence my excitement, there is no reason for any school leaver in Cairns to be without a job. There are businesses out there, I have 12,000 of them and you’re probably one of them if you’re watching this, that doesn’t have a proper social media strategy that you are marking around sending posts, getting a little bit of advertising or whatever but you don’t have anything in place.
You can employ a youth, a school leaver, you can keep our youth engaged in employment and keep them in their hometown if they so wish to. You get funding from the government from the media release from the back to work program or back to work youth boost, so google that. This is only available between up until the 28th of February next year. This is an opportunity. If you decide on the 27th of February this is something that you want to do, well then you can still your students with our course.
Let’s look at this. One, employ a school leaver or anyone between the age of 15 and 24. Two, they work with you for a month and they you can apply for the funding and you’ll get 40% of that funding in your bank account straight away. Three, they can learn on the job by doing the C3G social media course which is the first only in Cairns here. They can learn online with me and the other 30 students, and also they get access to the 10 workshops, so face-to-face, working on each one of the platforms. No brainer, putting it out there, there’s no reason why our youth need to leave town to get a job.
I know we have high unemployment for our youth, but there are no excuses anymore. We have got the tools, the funding, and the backing to have this happen for them. You know that you need somebody looking after your social media. That’s it. If you want to find out more google back to work. If you want to find out more about the social media course go to socialmediaspecialist.com.au and you’ll see a little link at the top. If not, PM me and I’m happy to chat and give you a hand.
Ciao for now, employ our youth, get your social media functioning and be in front of those competitors. Ciao for now.