Recruitment professionals are nervous about a slowing economy in the longer term but remain confident about the next quarter, according to a survey by the industry's peak body.
Recruitment professionals are nervous about a slowing economy in the longer term but remain confident about the next quarter, according to a survey by the industry's peak body.
The Recruitment & Consulting Services Association Quarterly Member Research found that short term business confidence remained consistent with the last two rounds of research, with 71 per cent of recruitment owners and managers expecting business to improve in the next three months. The volume by which it's expected to increase has risen slightly to 6 per cent.
However, those surveyed are nervous about the prospect of a downturn: the number who are concerned about the state of the economy has jumped by 13 per cent, to 71 per cent. This issue is now just second on the recruiters' list of concerns, while the lack of their clients' hiring intentions also jumped from 11th place to take 5th place.
Nonetheless, 93 per cent of recruitment professionals surveyed are having difficulty in finding suitable candidates, making this a burning issue and suggesting that recruiters will be grappling with a tight labour market for some time yet.
"These results show a cautious but optimistic mood in the recruitment industry. While in the past it has been subject to external economic shocks, many owners and managers have worked to 'recession-proof' their business by building long term partnerships, providing a broader range of human capital services and diversifying their permanent and on-hire revenue streams," Ms Julie Mills, CEO of the RCSA said.
However, Ms Mills predicts that years of underinvestment in skills training means the candidate shortage will continue to put pressure on both recruiters and employers.
"The candidate shortage has been more than ten years in the making and won't be receding any time soon. While the Federal Government's recent training initiative promises to provide 20,000 training places in the short term, only several hundred have signed up so far - so it's certainly not a quick fix.
"At the same time, the Government has recently decided not to fix the rules restricting recruitment firms from sponsoring skilled, on-hired workers on 457 visas. This means over 3000 projected sponsorships won't be going ahead in the next year, and hundreds of employers will struggle to find the people they need for skills-short industries such healthcare, IT and mining," Ms Mills said.
