VET News

Recruitment Conditions Hold Steady

A sustained high level of recruitment activity and modest easing of employers identifying difficult in recruitment have been recorded by the National Skills Commission’s December Recruitment Experiences and Outlook Survey.

The December 2021 results show that recruitment activity reached a new peak of 51%, an increase of 1 percentage point since November. Other indicators, however, have eased from the record highs recorded in November. These include the percentage of employers who:

• increased their staff numbers over the past month (11%, down from 13%)
• expect to increase staff numbers over the next three months (26%, down from 30%)

Growth in national recruitment activity was primarily driven by results for New South Wales, which recorded an 11 percentage-point increase in its recruitment rate over the month to stand at 58%. Victoria, on the other hand, recorded a decline of 8 percentage points to 43%.

The rate of recruitment difficulty also decreased, by 6 percentage points over the month to stand at 57% of recruiting employers (representing 29% of total employers).

This month’s Spotlight provides an update on retention difficulty: around one in ten employers had difficulty retaining staff in the past 3 months. Some sub-sectors are much more likely to be affected, however, including Pubs, Taverns and Bars (31% reported retention difficulty), Residential Care Services (29%), and Cafés, Restaurants and Takeaway Food Services (21%).

The report can be viewed in full at lmip.gov.au.

Date posted Jan 20, 2022