‘SMART INVESTMENTS, NOT SHORT-TERM SUGAR HITS’: JOBS FOR NSW REJECTS DAILY TELEGRAPH CRITICISM

The NSW Government has rejected criticism levelled at its $190 million job creation fund by The Daily Telegraph, which today claimed the fund’s managing body, Jobs for NSW, had yielded “drastically low results”.

Jobs for NSW was announced in August 2015 by then-premier Mike Baird, who said it would use the $190 million fund to “drive the creation of 150,000 new jobs over the next four years”. However, an article published by The Daily Telegraph (Monday, 12 March, page 16) notes that Freedom of Information documents obtained by the Labor Opposition reveal Jobs for NSW has had a “low yield”.

Specifically, the authors claim that businesses backed by the fund have committed to creating more than 4300 jobs but that by June 2017, 1058 jobs had been created, including “just 431 in its first full financial year”. The article also quoted Opposition Treasury spokesman Ryan Park as saying “millions of taxpayer dollars been funnelled into a white elephant of an agency that has abjectly failed”.

The acting CEO of Jobs for NSW, Geoff White, described the Telegraph’s claims as “misleading”, adding “to suggest that investments like this generate jobs overnight is to completely misunderstand how business works”. He stated that Jobs for NSW is “investing in the long-term future of the state”, and that the fund is being managed by “some of the nation’s best business minds”, including its chairman, former Telstra CEO David Thodey. Read more

James Harkness - Dynamic Business - 12 Mar 2018