Company aims for jobs

A new Bunbury-based traffic management company aims to offer new avenues for indigenous employment in the South West.

IQ Traffic, launched in March, aims to provide innovative, safe and tailored traffic management services to clients in the Mid West, South West and Goldfields.

Business growth director Damien Chalk said the company focused on those regions because of significant indigenous underemployment.

“We are trying to create less barriers and more pathways for Aboriginal people to get into a business that will understand them and work closely alongside them to develop their careers,” he said.

“We see it as being a great way of having economic participation for indigenous people.

“The intent is to create a business where people can come in and if they want to develop a career, they can, but it will be a very diverse and culturally appropriate business.”

Mr Chalk said he expected the company to create up to 50 jobs for Aboriginal people in the region.

“We have done some significant research into this space and we feel like we can comfortably achieve between 30 and 50 jobs every day,” he said.

“Initially it will be casual because of the lack of continuity for us and the contracts.

“There were a bunch of Aboriginal employees who were previously employed in this sector to do FIFO roles up north.

“So what we hope to do is to activate a lot of those people back into the workforce by giving them a business which is an Aboriginal business focused on giving jobs to Aboriginal people.”

The company is a partnership between Aboriginal consultancy company IPS and traffic management company Quality Traffic Management.