Brought to you by Indeed

Help wanted with 40 million positions vacant

Ian Grayson

Sep 30, 2019 – 12.00am

Subscribe to gift this article

Gift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe.

Already a subscriber?

While Australia’s stubborn unemployment rate continues to frustrate the Reserve Bank, many organisations are actually finding it challenging to fill existing vacancies.

Participants in the Australian Financial Review roundtable discussion, The Evolution of Recruitment, report that there are thousands of positions across multiple sectors for which no suitable candidates can be found.

Locating quality talent remains a challenge said Indeed's Ricky Fritsch Jeremy Piper

Ricky Fritsch, head of sales at global jobs site Indeed, says the number of online job listings is definitely increasing.

“This is a good sign that companies are still hiring,” he says. “Obviously, there's a lot of economic and geopolitical stuff going on out there … but we do think employers are still looking to bring quality talent in. The challenge continues to be how do they locate that quality talent?”

Microsoft Australia's chief customer officer, Jo Dooley, says strong vacancy rates certainly remain a challenge within the information technology sector, and it’s a situation that is unlikely to change any time soon.

“I think globally, by next year, we will probably see about 40 million overall vacancies for highly skilled technology people,” she says.

“Even if I just think about cybersecurity, in the next five years, we're going to have vacancies at least for another 20,000 people in that function just in Australia.”

Dooley says this situation is leading to an increasing battle for talent between companies looking to fill similar roles.

Australia needs 20,000 cybersecurity experts in the next five years said Microsoft's Jo Dooley. Jeremy Piper

“We are always on the lookout for good technology skilled people, and everyone's after them. Every organisation is running big technology practices to power their digital transformation (programs) and so it's not just tech firms - we're competing for talent with a number of different organisations.”

Outside the technology sector, other firms are reporting a similar situation. Finding people with the right skillsets to fill current openings is a constant challenge.

Flight Centre Travel Group's general manager for premium brands, Anna Burgdorf, says her company is struggling to find people with the right knowledge and experience to meet customer service requirements.
“In my particular field in premium brands, it's incredibly difficult to find really experienced travel advisors,” she says.

“That's where we see a massive gap, because our sector of the industry is very much about incredibly experienced, passionate people who are able to give solid advice. It's not (just about) booking holidays.

"We are much more focused on advice and a long-term relationship with people. Currently, we're looking for at least 100 people.”

Angela Howard, vice president, people & performance at cruise ship company Carnival, says her challenge is finding experienced people who are happy to work at sea for extended periods.

“In terms of the long-term pipeline, we've got to make sure that we have a good balance of people with shipboard experience, and that probably is the challenge,” she says.

“So it's about making sure that we've got an attractive offer for people who want to work at sea and have that experience.”

Roundtable participants agreed the current vacancy situation is unlikely to change in the short or medium term. As a result, organisations need to ensure they are making their offerings and workplaces as appealing as possible to attract the best and brightest candidates.