All businesses need workers – fulltime, part-time, casual or temporary – and it doesn’t matter what industry your business is in either. Whether it’s white collar, retail, blue collar or otherwise, for continued productivity and growth, you’ll need people to maintain and grow the business.
That then begs the question: What are the recruitment trends in Australia in 2019?
What is the most effective way to find staff, and should you employ staff members if you only need some temporary workers for a designated period of time, such as during the peak season for your industry?
Hopes Are High In 2019 for Business In General
Despite the fact that unemployment rates have dropped recently, and businesses have been complaining about a talent shortage, the overriding feeling in recruitment circles and business in general is that things are looking promising.
It’s expected that people will be spending more money on a whole in 2019 in Australia, which in turn means bigger profits for businesses. It also means companies will need to recruit to accommodate this business growth spurt.
Around three quarters of businesses and recruitment agencies expect the demand for temporary placements to increase during the 2019 year.
The reason for this might be that companies are unsure how long the upsurge in business activity and consumer spending will last, so instead of hiring permanent employees, they view temps as being the most logical way to move forward in the near future.
It’s Not All Milk and Honey Though
Some 74% of Australian businesses and companies are complaining that there is a distinct shortage of relevant talent around at the moment. That means they have to hire unqualified staff and spend time and money training them up.
From an employee perspective in 2019, around one third are complaining that employers are far too slow at initiating promised pay increases.
Because the traditional means of going about recruiting new employees and temporary staff doesn’t seem to be effectively filling the void this year, companies are starting to turn more towards utilising labour hire companies rather than going through recruitment agencies.
Unfortunately, despite the fact that online talent pools are available as a very handy resource for employers, still only about one quarter of Australian businesses believe these internet talent pools make recruiting the right staff easier.
There is also an overwhelming belief that employers need to increase their pay scale to lure in qualified candidates.
People Don’t Want To Work Set Hours Anymore
It’s a concept that certainly doesn’t apply to every single employee out there, but there is a growing trend that firmly suggests workers want more flexibility in their work schedules.
Some would rather work longer days and have an extra day off per week. Others are finding that working the traditional “9 to 5” structure stifling in the modern world and far too rigid.
Then there’s the growing trend of doing more work remotely (depending on the job role). Some employees – such as in an office environment – spend some of the week in the office, while the rest of the work they get done from their home office.
On the surface all of this may sound like a negative for businesses, but increased flexibility for employees has actually led to more productive and focused workers overall.
In order for businesses to satisfy this ever-increasing flexibility “norm”, employers must be willing to introduce flexibility into their company structure.
This, in turn, can also affect the way employers and business managers recruit new staff members, no matter what the industry.
There is now more of a need to seek out freelancers, private contractors and temporary employees than ever before.
Many workers might have a few things on the go and don’t want fulltime hours. Or they might seek out temporary contract work for a specified period of time when their other jobs or sideline businesses are experiencing a quiet period.
There is a real need for employers to now be able to hire on demand to fill any gaps in their talent pool, or to bring on temporary, qualified staff during busy periods. Often a stock standard recruitment agency won’t be able to readily fill this void because they don’t really have their own talent pool of skilled workers ready to roll.
Sure, they could probably find the workers, but it’ll be a time consuming process to source relevant candidates, screen them, go through a series of interviews and so on.
It’s looking more and more like labour hire type companies will be able to fill these “worker” voids much more quickly and efficiently; especially when it comes to the blue collar industry and the needs of manufacturers, mining companies, building companies and the like.
Why Labour Hire Is Advantageous
Labour hire companies will have a ready to go talent pool, offering a variety of highly skilled workers for a variety of industries.
Let’s say you’re a mining company and are in urgent need of some qualified staff to fill a void in production due to a sudden increase in demand. You won’t have time to run around trying to find the right staff, waiting for people to respond to adds, or for recruitment agencies to go through a series of screenings and interviews of potential workers.
You need the staff now.
Well, labour hire firms have people who are industry qualified and all ready to show up and start work on short notice. These candidates are already pre-screened and skilled at the job. You just call the labour hire company, tell them who you need, how many and when, and the company sends the workers over to you to get started.
Workers are available for temporary, casual and ongoing roles.
The labour hire company even takes care of paying the wages of the workers, insurances, worker’s compensation and more. The company needing the labour will simply be invoiced for total hours worked by the supplied workforce.
The Takeaway
The trend in 2019 seems to be more and more about flexibility, for both workers and their employers, which leads to recruiting trends focusing more on “labour for hire” methods and less on traditional recruitment methods.
That trend looks set to increase by 2020.
