balkanghost

Abbott faces job market challenges into 2014 before economy improves.

Surplus job seeker numbers of 134,000 will worsen before they get better with the Australian labour market not emerging from the doldrums until the second quarter of 2014, according to the latest Clarius Skills Indicator.

The Indicator reports that weak labour demand has pushed the unemployment rate above its average and it is expected to keep rising until the March quarter 2014 when it will reach around 6 per cent.

dave99

Tell me about it, I have been trying to find work for nearly 3 months. I go and meet these stupid agencys who go on about how I am an amazing candidate and I wont have any problem finding something and they might have a position blah blah blah. I then have to keep chasing them on these so called possibility's they may have and eventually they say its no longer available.

I think most of the time they are just faking it to get people to come see them so they can get information out of you, such as where you last worked so they can approach your previous employer and see if they can place people in your old job. Or they want to know if you have been put forward for any other positions so they can try and go to that employer and put their own person in.

The wages in Melbourne are also shockingly lower than Perth I have found out

Amazulu

Yep. Something that is common around the world - most employment agencies are shite

sonlymewalter

Spot on. They are nothing short of flesh peddlers with their own agenda

Beoz

Something tells me Australia will never emerge from the employment doldrums. Why? Well Costs - simple.

The amount of jobs, that need to be done locally, that cannot be fulfilled by cheap labour just north of Australia is becoming less and less.

Sure this won't happen overnight, but in certain sectors in large international companies, employing people based in Australia is no longer an option.

Why employ a local IT person, to maintain and look after hubs and servers when you can get 4 of those people to service the same thing north.

Those occupations that can be handled by the internet distribution or the occasional fly in fly out from Asia will be swallowed.

I guess when looking at career growth, ask yourself the honest question. Can my job be done by cheap labour? Or more importantly, would my company be prepared to sacrifice a high paying local for a cheapy from the north?

dave99

While server hosting can easily be done abroad most companies have learned now that trying to have your support done there as well is a terrible idea. There was a rush to outsource to india and china a few years ago but most have pulled the plug and gone back to local support.

Everyones had bad experiences calling a support line and getting someone with a really strong accent you can barely understand.

Beoz

That was the problem. It was a rush. I'd lay a bet that many organisations might be trying to sneak back there in the near future, China obviously not for telephone support, but India definitely with scrutiny on English abilities. If not India then the Philippines where the tech has a easily understandable American accent.

Amazulu

But that's a problem faced by every western country not just Australia

UK and US have outsourced to Asia on a biblical scale

Beoz

It's not just about outsoucing. It's also about insourcing. I think Australia will feel the effects more than elsewhere due to population, location and the ease of flying those from Asia and timezone with Asia. With Indonesia on a massive growth path it becomes all that more easier to reach into cheap resources from Australia's closest neighbour - though Indonesia aren't there yet, but they are on the move. What growth does Australia have looming. Mining? Maybe? Maybe not? Financial services - well you can outsouce that, Engineering, outsource it, Legal - you can even outsource that (the lawyers from my company are based in India ) manufacturing - dead. We're all on super high salaries compared to the rest of the world, we cost a fortune. What's going to sustain it?

roaringmouse

Where in the Bible does it talk about outsourcing?

chris955

Manufacturing will be where the pain is felt in the coming years, the car industry will be gone in 3-4 years at best and it employs directly and indirectly 10's of 1000's. High wages and restrictive work practices have made the country uncompetitive.

Icecube

I think you will find Brisbane is also bad, as well as Sydney (especially when you take the higher cost of living into account).

I am afraid that recruitment agencies are a product of their own business practices where the consultants are put through a meat grinder each week to achieve targets. This results in most of the good ones with whom you may want to build a relationship just moving on,leaving it to the young bloods to chase the numbers.....

isgraham

Yes but it's not always to India that the jobs go. Why some of my mates are waiting to be retrenched from their jobs in Macquarie their jobs are being recruited for in London. In fact I was offered basically my old job a couple of weeks ago simply because it's cheaper to have a developer in London than in Sydney.

Beoz

Armageddon for Australia is a foot. They slash the interest rate to lower the dollar. Instead the dollar goes higher and property booms.

Where's the underlying foundations?

Luma

iinet's helpline goes through to South Africa