A JOBS boost for the University of Ballarat's technology park at Mount Helen is a "vote of confidence" in Ballarat, Victorian premier Denis Napthine says.
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Announcing 60 new jobs at the technology park precinct this morning, Dr Napthine said the city was becoming a true ICT hub.
"This is really a significant step forward for the Ballarat Tech Park, the Ballarat University and the Ballarat district," he said.
"It's a really great win for local jobs."
The jobs are part of Primary Health Care Limited's plans to establish a Specialist Diagnostic Services Innovation Centre, to support the company's laboratories and pathology collection centres throughout Australia.
Jobs will be in the areas of software development, solutions architecture and project management.
"To support that, the service is linked with a graduate program at University of Ballarat," Dr Napthine said."
So the best and brightest from UB can be recruited and employed with this service.
"The announcement comes just six months after 150 new tech park jobs were announced with the establishment of IBM's Asia Pacific Centre of Excellence for Software Testing.
In May last year, the government re-zoned land at the tech park to facilitate a $155 million expansion, expected to generate an additional 1600 jobs.
The park already employs more than 1500 people in 30 businesses.Technology Park Director Mal Valance said the jobs coming to the precinct were "high-end" and would lead to significant economic benefits elsewhere in the city.
"We're trying to push those sorts of jobs for Ballarat," he said."Some people might think 60 jobs is a modest number, but these are quality positions being made available.
"Mr Valance said University and City of Ballarat leaders were making proactive approaches to businesses based in capital cities, to try and convince them to invest in Ballarat.
He said with lower business overheads, great infrastructure and support from the University of Ballarat, City of Ballarat and state government, Ballarat was in a good position to lure new companies.
"There will be more announcements like this over the next 12 months," Mr Valance said.
"I'm pretty confident of that."
Primary Health Care business development manager Carl Adams said his company was "here for the long term".
"It was a very natural fit for us to be part of this technology park," he said.