Recruitment and training: Industry perspectives

Over the past year, just over half of employers who looked for staff experienced difficulty in recruiting, with mining reporting the highest rate of difficulty (76.7%) and education the lowest (37.0%).

Overall, 54.0% of employers engage with the VET system; there is a high degree of versatility, with the rate as low as 28.5% (agriculture, forestry and fishing) and as high as 88.8% (government administration and defence).

These are some of the findings from the 2007 Survey of Employer Use and Views of the VET System.

In the survey, the main reasons given for recruitment difficulties are a shortage of skilled people in the industry (58.7%) and limited applicants or appropriate applicants available (23.0%). The reasons are fairly consistent across industries.

Methods adopted by employers to address the difficulties are increased advertising (24.5%), use of recruitment agencies or head hunters (21.0%) and, lower down the list, training and/or up-skilling of employees (13.1%).

Strategies such as increased advertising and use of recruitment agencies or head hunters are common to many industries. Although training and/or up-skilling is down the list for many industries, it is right up there with other methods for manufacturing and property and business services employers.

As part of a new suite of publications, NCVER has produced a set of industry profiles based on the 2007 employer use and views survey and other NCVER and Australian Bureau of Statistics data.

Available are 17 individual industry flyers and an overview. They can be accessed from www.ncver.edu.au/publications/1806.html.