City of Karratha childcare workers to benefit from free gym memberships

The City of Karratha has announced that childcare workers in the Pilbara region will be able to get free gym memberships at its Karratha Leisureplex and Wickham Recreation Precinct facilities as part of a push to attract more employees to the struggling sector.

City of Karratha Councillors voted at the end of February to match the Regional Childcare Workers Retention Initiative grant of $25,000 to cover the cost of a 12-month gym membership at its facilities.

The total funding of $50,000 would cover memberships for about 50 of the region’s 96 childcare workers.

A 12-month corporate membership at the Karratha Leisureplex costs $1248 a year, while at the Wickham Recreation Precinct it is $752.

Council staff advised that childcare operators in the district said housing and the cost of living were the biggest challenges to attracting and keeping staff, with a report to Councillors advising “the information provided is that on their hourly rate (average of $29), many staff find it difficult to have funds available for their personal fitness and recreation.

“If the city was to receive the full grant of $25,000, this will result in approximately 25 memberships, dependent on which facility they were at.”

The report said by matching the grant it would double the number of people covered.

Advising that the membership would benefit a lot of childcare workers, Karratha Mayor, Peter Long stated “we do it for our own staff and it’s very successful, so we thought that we would match the amount given to us by the State Government and that way we could cover more people.

“We just think it was something that we could do that was quite simple.”

Images: Fitness at the Karratha Leisureplex. Credit: Karratha Leisureplex.