A grand opening was held yesterday at 168 Castle St, where both the Workforce Central Dunedin job and skills hub and the Southbase Construction site office will be housed.
Southbase Construction is the main contractor for the outpatient building of the new Dunedin Hospital, while Workforce Central Dunedin is a skills and talent incubator set up for the rebuild.
Southbase Construction chief executive Quin Henderson said giving opportunities to young people was important to him.
He had gone to polytech, studied at night and worked hard, but it was the people in similar roles to the one he had now who had given him the opportunities he needed to reach his full potential.
Now he was relishing the chance to pay it forward.
"Leave a legacy behind — it’s key," Mr Henderson said.
The company was proud of its in-house training system and it worked with iwi, polytechnics, universities and schools to get young people into the workforce.
The long timeframe of the hospital rebuild meant people would be able to start without knowing anything and launch their careers from Dunedin, Mr Henderson said.
Workforce Central Dunedin co-founder and board member Pete Hodgson said there were about a dozen agencies involved.
Workforce Central Dunedin was created to address one of the biggest risks of the rebuild, which was undertaking such a large project so far away from major labour markets, he said.
It aimed to maximise the benefits to the South from the rebuild, see fewer people on the dole and lower recidivism.
One of its primary functions would be connecting under-skilled or underemployed workers with employees, training courses or those taking on apprentices.
It would work to get more women into construction and identify Māori or Pasifika businesses which needed assistance with training.
The hospital project was so big that other capital works projects around the city would be deferred, which meant there would be further trade jobs in Dunedin once it was finished, Mr Hodgson said.
