More than 4000 Wyndham residents will lose their jobs in the next three years as a result of Australia’s auto industry closures, a University of Adelaide study has found.
The study by the Australian Workplace Innovation and Social Research Centre and National Institute of Economic and Industry Research analyses direct and flow-on job losses resulting from the closure of Toyota, Holden and Ford plants.
The study predicts 200,000 job losses nation- wide, with about half of those in Victoria.
It finds Wyndham residents will be among the state’s hardest hit, with the municipality likely to record the fifth-highest number of job losses by employee residents.
It’s expected that 4360 Wyndham residents in the auto industry will lose their jobs by 2017 But the worst-hit municipality will be Casey, where 6734 residents will become unemployed.
In a bid to reduce the impact of the job losses on Wyndham, the council has joined other western suburbs councils, the state government and advocacy group LeadWest. They commissioned research on businesses that will be affected by the closures and will use the research to promote creation of local jobs.
The council’s economic development unit is meeting companies to discuss the issues they are dealing with and to identify training opportunities.
Cr Gautam Gupta said the council’s research found there could be flow-on losses from the auto industry closures, forcing Wyndham manufacturers to close their doors.
“Manufacturing accounts for 14.4 per cent of total employment in Wyndham so any downturn in that sector will have an impact on the resident workforce,” he said.
