Warning against loss of skilled operators

THE reduction in the number of engineering-based projects under way or in planning as a result of the downturn has alleviated the skills shortage, but care should be taken not to lose staff from the sector when the pendulum swings again.

Participants at the WA Business News roundtable acknowledged there has been a slowdown across most industries, from mines closing and construction projects being pulled, to professional organisations culling staff.

But the forum heard that, while the skills shortage may have temporarily been alleviated due to staff cuts freeing up potential employees, there is the danger of facing shortages again if staffing efforts are not maintained.

Association of Consulting Engineers Australia (WA) division chairman David Porter believes that, at least in the short term, the skills shortage is over.

"Contractors are laying staff off now and I get the impression that anybody who is on a contract with somebody, they would have to be looking pretty iffy too," Mr Porter said.

"It doesn't matter if it's with a construction agency or a design agency or a mining enterprise or whatever, if you're on a contract you've made money in a really good time. Now it's going to be the down-cycle and it's those people that seem to be going first.

"This has sort of killed the skills shortage but we will go back into a skills shortage cycle again if we don't maintain what we've spent a lot of time building up."

GHD business group manager transportation, Ashley Wright, has seen a significant increase in the number of people looking for work with his company.

"We've noticed, typically, we'd arrive on a Monday and there'd be 15-20 CVs; now there are between 100 and 120 CVs of people looking for work and these are some really presentable people," Mr Wright said.

"What's happening with a lot of the bigger contracts is that 200 or 300 people get laid off at once.

"They lay off the entire team, they don't go and segregate that team and work out who's good - that project is halted, they have to get rid of that cost, that team gets dumped."

The international callout for skilled migrants has significantly reduced the shortage of workers skilled in Australia during the past five years.

However, as projects fold, it's those recently appointed staff members who are first laid off; a notion Norman, Disney and Young's Perth office director Andrew Macgregor is not happy with.

"You're going to lose some of the cream of the people who have joined the industry the last two to three years," Mr Macgregor said.

Wood and Grieve Engineers director Matt Davis agrees the potential loss of 457 visa workers would be a significant setback for the individuals concerned, and the businesses.

"Take the 40 year-old South African engineer who has relocated to Perth with his family and put his kids in school and we tell him, 'oh no, you go back there now'," Mr Davis said.

Arup associate Josh Neil also said he'd be disappointed to see good quality people leave the industry.

"We struggled so hard to get people here in the first place, to turn them away seems tragic," Mr Neil said.

ACEA national president and Parsons Brinkerhoff regional director, Paul Reed, highlighted the long-term problem of an ageing, and soon-to-be retiring workforce will once-again require enhanced staff levels, especially in engineering.

"I would counsel against being too responsive in a kneejerk sense to the current downturn from an industry perspective," Mr Reed said.

"I think before too long, when the cycle turns again, we'll be back in the same position again."