It seems like every other day we are waking up to news of another association, union or supporting body on the news complaining that there aren’t enough candidates in their industry. It’s hard, when there are less employees and that the remaining employees often have to pick up the difference. That can, in some cases lead to burn out, exhaustion and sickness. Inevitably, this results in less employees to complete the work thus completing the circle.
It appears that many industries are back to normal with minimal restrictions, we still see that there are requirements for those that test Covid positive to isolate and work remotely. We can acknowledge that also puts a strain for those industries that cannot work remotely (such as hospitality, aged care and transportation to name a few). This puts further strain on already impacted sectors.
It has been noted that during the pandemic (especially those that had lengthier lockdowns) people took the time to re-evaluate what they want. This went into all aspects, where people live, what they do for a living, what hobbies they are interested in. Whilst the media has coined the term the great resignation, I prefer another term; the great realignment. What I mean by this is, the changes that we were used to seeing over several years, we saw in six months. I recount several conversations of people (both in a professional and personal sense) decide to go chase after what they were really interested in doing. To an extent, the sense of control was back. Which is great, well except if you are trying to find more people to fill active vacancies.
Currently the unemployment statistics for Australia are at historical lows with reports that there are more job ads than people looking for work. This is scenario that I thought I would never see in my working life. What does this mean? The available talent pool is so small, employers are struggling to find staff or even retain staff. This in some cases drives up employee salaries and drives up the cost of service. And the cycle continues as we have to pay more for services etc.
What is missing?
The part that is most likely missing and I was pleased to see this starting to make headlines is skilled migration. For many years, the information technology sector has relied on skilled migration to fill the gap of knowledge. Current forecasts by CIIER indicate that in 2026 we will need 1.1 million IT jobs across multiple occupational groupings. That is an average annual growth of 5.4%. The December release of ABS Australian growth statistics had the population growth at 0.5% or 128,000 people. This sad statistic means that we have to attract talent from overseas not only for technology jobs (which lets be honest is difficult as the world has embraced the work from anywhere), but for future jobs and the jobs that we need filled today. Whilst I appreciate that there will now be a backlog of people attempting to enter, and we have to do all the checks to ensure our security and safety. I would encourage that we do everything we can in order to assist all industries across all geographics.
For industry, I would encourage you to look at what your teams are doing. Is there anything that is not adding value? Why do I ask this? Maybe we can get more done with less. Maybe we can focus on the things that really add value and that just might reduce the stain to your teams and business. Parkinson’s Law “Work expands to fill the available time”. Whilst we might think there is a lot to do, the question is, is the work that we are doing adding the most value?
Author | Paul Walters | Operations Manager, Mercury IT
