SEEK boss Ian Narev says employers will demand to know if job applicants are vaccinated
The CEO of jobs search company SEEK says it’s ‘inevitable and imminent’ that employers will ask applicants if they have been vaccinated.
Ian Narev, the chief executive of the nation’s biggest job search company, SEEK, said it is both “inevitable and imminent” that businesses looking for staff on his employment website will demand to know if applicants have received their Covid-19 vaccine.
This will be done, most likely, by employers asking potential new hires if they have received a vaccine.
He added that mass vaccinations were the only way out of the pandemic and that with companies eager to have their own employees fully vaccinated against Covid-19 it was only natural that new staff joining their ranks would also need to have had the jab.
It was unclear how the vaccination status of a jobs candidate would be revealed, but Mr Narev said it was likely new job ads on the leading SEEK website would detail that a full vaccination was a requirement of applying for a role.
“I would say that is inevitable and imminent frankly,” Mr Narev told The Australian on Tuesday.
“I think this is separate to what the government policy is going to be, if some employers have already made it very clear that they want all their staff to be vaccinated and my assumption would be if that is what they are going to do they are going to want a way to know as people apply whether they have been vaccinated or not.”
The looming vaccination demands that could soon be a requirement to gain employment on the nation’s biggest online jobs search business could catch on very quickly, making vaccinations a mandatory requirement to get a job.
Already fruit cannery SPC has made compulsory vaccinations a policy for its staff with Qantas this month announcing all of its employees must be vaccinated against Covid-19, to become the latest global airline to mandate vaccines for staff.
“The way the narrative is going and the way we interact with clients who are saying here is what we want, we’ve already heard a number of companies make very public ‘you have to be vaccinated to work with us’ so I’d assume we are going to get the questions pretty soon as to whether we can facilitate that on the (SEEK) platform,” Mr Narev said.
Mr Narev, a former CEO of Commonwealth Bank, told The Australian after SEEK unveiled a swing back to profit and reinstated its dividend as the jobs market recovered, that businesses in the near future will want to know if potential employees have been vaccinated.
“If that is what they want, well, we are very client focused and we will make the capability available to ask the question,” Mr Narev said.
Job applicants may not be forced to divulge their vaccine status, but it would be a requirement to land the job.
“Not so much that a (jobs) candidate has to divulge, but where an employer makes clear that for us as an employer this is a requirement of the job.”
Mr Narev said SEEK does business across 10 countries and it was clear to him that vaccines “are the way through this” and he is encouraging staff to get vaccinated.
“We believe being vaccinated is the path through this.”
SEEK returned to profit in 2021 with a net profit of $752.2m, against a loss of $113.1m in 2020. The large profit swing was heavily driven by the $560m sell down of its stake in Chinese job search business Zhaopin from 61.1 per cent to 23.5 per cent. Of that just over $400m has been paid, captured in the fiscal 2021 results.
SEEK reinstated its dividend, declaring a final dividend of 20 cents per share to be paid on October 5.
SEEK said pre-tax earnings rose 15 per cent to $473.6m. The reported net profit excluding significant items was $140.8m, up from $88.9m in 2020.
“The recovery in the Australia and New Zealand job ad volumes began in the second quarter of 2021, and then increased rapidly,” said Mr Narev.
“By March of this year, job ad volumes exceeded pre Covid-19 levels and were at all-time highs.”
He said the environment remained “volatile” but that so far in Australia and New Zealand the depth of the decline from a business perspective in the current Covid-19 wave and lockdown was not as bad as in 2020.
“It is still there but less than last time around. My assumption is that businesses that feel they can get through this look to the speed of the recovery last time and realise, gosh, things could come back really quickly and when they do it can be quite hard to find people so as long as we can we should keep trying to look for people and find people even through this choppy time.”
Mr Narev said the recovery in Asia has been slower and uneven.
Turning to outlook, SEEK said its EBITDA would be in the range of $425m to $450m based on assumed revenue of $950m to $1bn. Net profit was targeted to be in the range of $190m to $200m.
Shares in SEEK ended down 21c, or 0.7 per cent on Tuesday at $31.30.
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