Born and raised in Whanganui, he left in the 1980s but has been back for eight months looking for work, not something he's had to do a lot in the past.
"Most of the time I've been self employed. I had to look for work in Australia back a bit but that was always easy to come by."
A welder by trade, he has done a range of jobs before and would consider anything.
He said he had done CV drops in businesses around town and yesterday morning decided to stand at the roundabout by Cobham Bridge with a work wanted sign.
"As soon as I got here and lifted my sign up I thought god, I'm a dick. [But] it's not as humiliating as I thought it would be actually," he said.
"Yeah, you've got to swallow your pride a bit. But I'm getting beeps from people. I had one guy stop and take my number. You do what you have to do."
He did try in New Plymouth where he had a job for a while but "it didn't last, it just didn't work out".
Mr Sketcher said if nothing came out of yesterday he would be back.
But not today.
"Tomorrow's my birthday so I'm having the day off."