Hi, average wage for youth workers

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Author	Message
adrian dunn Member	# Posted: 23 Jul 2008 21:36 Reply Hi my name is Adrian. I work in the uk doing youth work and i'm currently working towards my degree in youth work and after this hope to move out to NZ. I'm just looking at the site and reading about the news. Is there a lot of youth work jobs in New Zealand
Manu Caddie Member	# Posted: 1 Aug 2008 21:14 Reply Kia ora Adrian. There are lots of youth work jobs in New Zealand - some of them are even paid. The pay scale for youth work varies greatly across the country. In the metropolitan centres larger organisations attract more funding from private and public funders and pay youth workers more money (some are paid over NZ$50,000) - in smaller organisations and provincial centres youth workers do it more for altruistic reasons than the money - average pay for youth workers in our town of 35,000 people is around NZ$30,000... this is still 50% above the average wage for Maori and 20% above the average wage for Pakeha (people of European descent) in our community. NZ has particular cultural politics and foreign youth workers may find it difficult to find work in some communities unless they can demonstrate that they can work appropriately with Maori and Pacific young people - and give employers confidence that they understand the history of our country/region and Maori/Pacific peoples aspirations to lead their own development. Having said this, I have met a number of foreign youth workers employed by Maori organisations who have obviously passed these tests and are able to add significant value to the communities served by those organisations. Hope this helps. - Manu.

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