UTS School of Built Environment was proud to be involved this month in the launch of the Multiplex Connectivity Centre in Penrith. This is the fourteenth such centre to be created by the company, and will create job opportunities for local people on the second Sydney airport terminal.
Connectivity Centres are free resources designed to improve social outcomes for people experiencing disadvantage, by providing meaningful job and training opportunities alongside large Multiplex infrastructure construction projects. Each centre finds work for Indigenous people, refugees and migrants, people with disability, youth at risk, ex-offenders, domestic violence survivors, and the long term unemployed.
UTS Professor Martin Loosemore has been closely involved in Multiplex’s Connectivity Centres for over 15 years. Over this period Martin and his team have worked with Multiplex to independently study and inform the centres’ operations.
UTS Professor Martin Loosemore and Federal Minister for Employment Hon Stuart Robert at the Penrith launch. PHOTO: Multiplex Connectivity Centre.
Representatives of government, businesses, social enterprises, employment services organisations, registered training bodies, community groups, not-for-profits, and charities all come together within each centre, and offer training, employment and apprenticeship pathways, and wrap-around support services for each individual job seeker.
Professor Loosemore’s research has shown that many hundreds of jobs have been created by these centres over the last decade, changing the lives of the most marginalised and disadvantaged people in our communities. And the benefits of each Connectivity Centre’s work goes beyond jobs - employment is associated with many health and economic benefits not only for these employees but for the communities in which they live and their families too.
Multiplex have also partnered with Professor Loosemore on three successful ARC Linkage grants in the areas of diversity, gender equity and social procurement which directly relate to the Connectivity Centre operations, and have co-published research with Professor Loosemore and his team in several peer reviewed international journals and two books.