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CEO's column: Strong jobs growth

By intouch * posted 13-11-2017 11:07

  

The economy is showing strong growth in jobs which may start to impact recruitment and retention for engineers.

SEEK Employment Trends reported that “job ads rose by 12.1% in September compared to the same time last year and the positive results were shared across every state and territory.”

IPWEA’s own jobs board, www.Hoopla4Jobs.com.au has also experienced an increase in use by member organisations as it grows in popularity through delivering high quality candidates.   

According to SEEK, the number of job advertisements in recent months have returned to the high levels experienced in 2010.  While this is a good early indicator for the economy, it also foreshadows that employee movement and wage pressures may soon follow. This is relevant particularly for engineering as the major advertising sector for the last nine months has been the mining industry, albeit coming off a very low base after the mining boom-bust. The mining sector showed a 60% increase; the construction sector at 27%, and engineering a 22% increase over the same time last year.

The fields across the mining industry to record greatest demand year-on-year in September were mining engineering and maintenance, mining operations, and health, safety and environment.

Salary package was the primary motivator for attracting people back into mining, followed by job security and work-life balance. Once again, local government may need to look carefully at the latter two of these drivers as they have traditionally been draw-cards and retention inducements for keeping people in the public sector.   However, as some within YIPWEA have recently noted, the private sector is now tapping into and offering these motivating incentives.

The strong results showed that infrastructure, road, rail, construction, and building projects are underpinning the economy, whilst retail and consumer spending sectors remained flat. Job advertising increases year-on-year were up: SA 22%, WA 17.8%, NT 16.4%, QLD 15.7%, VIC 15%, TAS 10.8%, ACT 8.8%, NSW 7.1%.

The end of year/new year period is traditionally an active time when people change roles, so remember to use Hoopla4Jobs if you are looking to recruit new staff.  It’s IPWEA’s own jobs board where we match infrastructure professionals with infrastructure jobs and keep good professional people within our industry.

Robert Fuller
CEO, IPWEA 
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