I'm a migrant. I work in the maritime survey sector. There's essentially no tertiary training pathway in Australia in this sector for any of the core skills involved, but paradoxically there's a massive program by the federal government to map Australia's EEZ, especially around WA, NE Qld, NT.
So with a huge demand for our skills but almost no Aussies entering the industry at a high level other than those being trained as naval officers, there's currently no choice but to take us foreigners.
My office is majority non-Aussie by about 3:1.
Collectively I reckon the sector takes maybe fifty to a hundred and fifty migrants a year. But there are probably lots of other examples of small, below radar sectors in a similar situation. Australia for one reason or another just doesn't train for certain skills.
They don't train for certain skills because they need people with those skills to teach those skills to new people coming through. Someone isn't going to be a teach those skills when in demand as they can make money hand over fist doing it themselves rather than teaching..
For example. In WA they are struggling to get electrical teaches to teach the new batch of apprentices because there is more money in doing it themselves. For a much more niche industry like yours there would be little to noone willing to teach so they have to get migrants in
The government understanding and understating of hydro is comical. Both in the remuneration side of things and pathways for registration. How can you be doing a highly trained role that expects your concentration permanently on three different monitors looking at multiple variables for 79 k a year. That’s how little value they see because they do not and will not understand just how specialised the role is.
I’ve got a background in Radar, but could get some qualis in spatial science.. is this the kind of degree that would get me in the door? What is your usual day to day? Also what’s the average salary like in this line of work?
Spatial science is definitely useful for my line of the business in cartography/GIS and data processing, although it's a really niche subset of GIS with its own standards and heavy use of AutoCAD as much as GIS packages.
If you want to get into survey, the degrees unfortunately just don't exist here. Studying abroad or joining the navy would be your best bet, or studying conventional land survey and transitioning to marine survey (one guy at work did this).
The hardest part is getting in the door. Once you have some experience in the industry, progression can be rapid.
Anything from $70K for entry-level GIS to north of $150K for a senior surveyor. Plus lots of TOIL if you're a surveyor out on the boats. Lots of money sloshing around so bonuses are pretty common, too.
Thanks for the detailed reply. I, asked because I’m actually in the Navy right now and considering what I might do in the future if/when I decide to rejoin civilian street. Might see what opportunities lie around work in order to get some more courses under my belt now.
And there are skills available in Australia which employers try to assert are unavailable so they can avoid training costs.
Recently, Qantas went to the government asking to be allowed to import pilots for its new Airbus 220s. They claimed "no qualified pilots" in Australia. That was true because nobody in Australia flew the A220. But about 3 weeks of ground school and some sim would qualify any A320 pilot for the A220 - and there are hundreds of A320 co-pilots in Australia. Qantas didn't want to pay the miniscule cost of the training school. They didn't even save much on sim flying because any overseas pilots would need just about the same sim time as locals.
The main way Q would have saved is by not disrupting existing types by promoting co-pilots from their existing fleets.
Same deal with doctors.
There’s a mountain of junior doctors waiting for specialist training, and a shortage of specialists. Importing specialists is like importing A220 captains, it just screws over the juniors trying to rise up in the ranks.
The qualified surveyors are assessed by the Geospatial Council of Australia, both for migration purposes and ongoing certification. All allied professions like mine (cartography) are through VETASSESS I think.
I used to be an engineer in a previous career.
The perpetual engineer shortage is pure bullshit. It's garbage messaging from the likes of Engineers Australia.
If anything there is a lack of opportunities especially for younger engineers coming out of uni. I always felt sorry for the grass coming out of engineering schools that couldn't find anything in their field of study.
I’m not an engineer, but have several mates who graduated from engineering. Some of them went to work in engineering related jobs, most went into other industries after uni. After a few years, the blokes who worked at engineering gigs shifted their careers to other fields as progression and opportunities were severely limited. These guys are some of the smartest people I know, it’s really a shame that we don’t have the right opportunities for them.
A friend did a B. Eng and IT double degree and did both early career. IT blows Eng out of the water in pay, conditions and opportunities. If you’re smart and technically inclined, you would be stupid to choose to be an engineer.
As an example, 7 years out and we are easily double and more an average engineers salary, always hounded on LinkedIn with jobs and plenty of free time plus work from home. And professional satisfaction of problem solving in large complex enterprise problems.
Choose IT kids.
B. Elec Eng and B. Comp Sci here, recently got made redundant from an Integration Engineering role after 3 years, so I'm currently job searching.
When you say "IT" that's very broad, could you specify any roles or companies you mean? I'm really at a crossroads with what to do with my career. It'd be nice to be paid to do not much, but it's also nice to get well paid to do work you enjoy or has tangible positive impact on the world. TIA
Not op but after 4~5 years of working, now I’m on my way to change from mechanical/biomedical engineering to data science with a part time postgraduate course. I realised I like to code and work with data.
I moved out of traditional engineering work into consulting. I still use my technical skills somewhat, but I've found consulting has higher salary possibilities and also lets you develop your broader skills beyond just the technical ones.
Junior engineers get paid poorly, but mainly cuz they're more of a hindrance than help until they've got 5-10yrs technical experience. Until then, it's really just a training course with a salary, like an apprenticeship almost. Attrition then means the ones that stay get massive pay rises.
It's kinda why if you look at the pay scales, grad engineers are near the bottom in terms of income straight out of uni, yet at the same time, engineerin managers are generally consistently in the top 10 best paid jobs.
Maybe civil engineering is different from other engineering industries but in civil, around 85% of people never leave the lowest pay grade. Sure, managers get paid well but most people never become managers. They sit there being paid "hinderence" wages for ever.
Experienced this. Civil engineer for 10 years. Went from local gov to private consulting to senior technical public service to private major project management and the whole time the wage was within a $10 per hour variance, the stress was not. Felt like you accept more stress and worse hours for $2 an hour and a better linkedin profile with more precarity. Left it to go back to uni and do medicine. Much happier in both the work and the stability of healthcare.
It's a crappy way to do it too. As a grad you're at the mercy of the internal training that's offered. When I started out I had nice people but terrible training and I stuck it out for far too long. By the time I knew my arsehole from my earhole I was so bored by all the tedious busy work that I wanted out of the whole industry.
Moved from electrical to software in my 30s and infinitely happier now.
Yep, I'm a recent mech eng grad. I ask for work and get nothing besides data entry. I'm so bored and frustrated, and have made my feelings known at work but still it doesnt change. Only mid level or above get actual work. I can't see myself doing this for long. Probably gonna sell out to finance/ consulting like a good portion of my mates already have.
+1
I ended up in a niche mechanical engineering specialisation that was quite different from the niche I trained in, but it was a dead end unless I moved overseas (think automotive industry).
I spent about 5 years trying to redeploy into different fields. Too old for grad jobs, lacking specialised experience for higher grade jobs.
I had to go back to school and re-train in my 40s. Now I'm in allied health.
I'm sure there are some engineering fields where they're crying out for workers. But there are plenty of underutilized local engineers with training and/or experience in fields that are not in demand at all and struggling to find work.
This strikes so true and why I recommend to my kids to not pursue engineering as a career.
To progress in an engineering career you most often have to become more and more specialised. The more specialised you are, the less jobs are available in that field. If you want to move or change career even slightly you’re taking a massive pay cut or starting again.
As to the “engineers shortage”, mining companies have a shortage of engineers who they want to pay wages from 2 decades ago to live in the sticks and have no life. Why be an engineer when you can earn as much as most engineers holding a Stop/Slow sign in a metropolitan area?
A caveat to this - and one of my struggles in my engineering career - is that actual specialist engineering work is treated as a conduit to management.
If you're a good technical engineer, you'll get promoted until you don't do any engineering work any more.
I was a good technical engineer. When I chased the money into project management and product management, I found that the work didn't come naturally to me and I hated it.
Management is an entirely different skillset to engineering. There's some overlap in personality types, but to be a good manager takes a very different person than a good engineer. Simplistically it's an introvert/extrovert divide. I thrive working on difficult problems and communicating results - chasing people and coordinating stuff is difficult and draining for me. I'm not a complete sociopath, but in my late 40s now I've reflected enough to know myself and my strengths. I don't want to manage because it's not my strength.
If I had thrived and progressed in management roles I may have been more portable. Instead, I deliberately chased demotions and bricked myself in to technical roles where I could do proper engineering work. And then couldn't transition to technical
I am a software engineer and in my industry this particular problem is slowly starting to be addressed with the introduction of technical specialist career progression pathways that pay equivalent to their corresponding people management roles. This is great in my opinion. The fork can be taken from senior engineer up.
I ended up on the management pathway myself. I was working for a company in free-fall and my manager resigned. There was no clear successor. He was a great manager. Recalling how bad it was to be managed by a poor manager I looked around my organisation to see if I could guess who might step up. Most of my colleagues were nice enough but I didn’t fancy being managed by any of them. I figured if we’re going to get a bad manager it may as well be me, at which point I went to senior management and proposed it. I was surprised when they accepted.
The company hobbled along for another year before going into receivership. It was long enough to get some management experience and find another management role. I was surprised to discover it seemed relatively easy to me, almost to the point where I sometimes question the need for the role all together - although at times its desperately needed.
To me it feels like an opportunity to remove a lot of red tape and help my folks focus on what matters. I also get a lot more autonomy to decide what is going to move the needle without being constantly second guessed by worried,, non technical but well meaning managers. I should add that I remain highly technical and hands on, it helps decision making, it helps earn the trust and respect of my folks.
I am now into my 8th year as a manager and now that technical pathways are available I sometimes flirt with the idea of jumping the fork. I probably won’t but I do wonder sometimes.
The irony that I'm currently in allied health, hating it, and considering going back to uni for engineering!
Do you mind if I ask what allied health role you're in?
My son couldn’t get a job when he graduated chem engineering- his academic history was a bit chequered but he ended up with an honours anyway.
He’s a firey now. Loves it. Was also the only firey on course with a uni degree, lol (they printed that info in the graduation booklet)
Could it be theres a significant need for engineers in regional, remote and rural Australia and fifo as opposed to cities? And I agree those are very specific lifestyles that dont suit many people.
My industry which is healthcare is the same, huge demand in country, regional areas, city is super competitive, especially the closer to cbd u get. Despite this i dont want to and will avoid moving to outer suburbs, tried the 70km each way commute (rip life) and rural / country just isnt for me. I suspect similar could be the case for engineers?
Lots of the “engineering” required in FIFO isn’t design, it’s basically field technicians.
Of course that’s required, but I looked into it after I graduated in systems engineering in the 2000s and realised how slim the STEM opps were here and moved into consulting.
There is a shortage of engineers but not on the average. The shortage is in the middle. Competent, experienced engineers are in very short supply - mostly because many of the big companies don't have a pipeline to turn the young engineers (of which there is indeed a glut) into experienced, technically savvy, engineers.
That and almost no companies have a pathway to technical seniority these days - anyone who wants to be promoted needs to go down the engineering management or C suite path if they want to earn the big bucks. Even companies that used to be a bastion of technical expertise, and took a lot of pride in that, have moved to a model based on hiring technical expertise off the street, rather than developing it internally.
This, combined with practices that make it almost impossible to work as a technical engineer if you are the primary carer of a child, means that the average age of women in technical engineering roles is 27 in Australia.
Heaps of grass vying for very few mid level engineering roles mean there is a shortage of mid and senior technical engineers.
100% this, to get up today in big eng companies you have to post on LinkedIn rather than get better in engineering. Big consultancies have become bloated management firms, almost to the likes of Pwc, just advise but never commit to actual engineering. Any specialized or serious stuff is outsourced to smaller subbies.
Grads are encouraged to be leaders and managers, actual engineers are frowned upon and called introverts by the big talkers. There is very few grads who even get proper chance to do technical stuff. Everyone is overworked and have no time to train them and companies sure won't give budget for training.
I see this new generation of engineers lost in this fake world of client relationships and leadership. They are being led to believe everything but engineering matters, only chit chat and leadership. Except there won't be anyone to lead very soon.
>Even companies that used to be a bastion of technical expertise, and took a lot of pride in that, have moved to a model based on hiring technical expertise off the street, rather than developing it internally.
The culture of deliberate, structured learning in engineering consultancies is a thing of the past. Of the companies I've worked at, the expectation is the individual must shoulder the burden of learning, on the job, to produce deliverables reliant on that learning. Educating their workforce beyond what is taught at uni is a derided concept - very ruthless, "sink or swim" mentality there. The dearth of senior engineers means that they are too overworked to bring up the next generation of junior and mid-level engies.
In my field, the boom-bust cycles in infrastructure mean all the experienced people move away when governments change hands and projects dry up. Then everyone has to be brought back at a premium when the next cycle spins up.
There is no shortage. Some department compares our economy with other more industrialised ones like Germany or the USA, and finds that they have a larger portion of their workforce in engineering, therefore if we're to be successful like them, we must have a shortage.
The reality is as cynical as it can be, it's only a shortage in order to keep wages from going too high.
Was looking for a comment like this! Anyone who thinks the shortage is a lie has obviously not needed to hire recently. There’s no one out there. We’ve brought in a few from overseas but the sponsorship is a pain and then they end up being quite hit or miss.
Engineer here. I agree.
What industry wants is a perpetual supply of engineers with 3-8 years experience who are willing to be paid a smidge above a graduate salary. But they'd rather not have to pay graduates to actually learn on the job, which results in a small supply of local engineers in that category, so they try to fill this gap with immigrant engineers.
I do some part time uni teaching for final year eng students these days. Recently the students have been having no trouble getting jobs. The word is well and truly out that engineering grads are generally pretty switched on, and grads are more aware they don't have to work as engineers just because they did that degree. The result is a broader spread of careers being taken up than were back when I did my degree.
Engineers Australia will push for their own interests. Which is more immigration so they can certify immigrant engineering skills. Government needs to stop listening to them.
There is no shortage of people with an engeering degree. There is a massive shortage of competency with depth of experience in a particular discipline. And also a massive lack of adequate mentor ship for those comming through to build that competence, and results in individuals not staying in a position long enough to develop true depth of experience.
This of course manifests as lack of suitable candidates for mid-senior positions, especially in lower paid public service positions.
Not forced. Engineers Australia accreditation itself doesn't really hold weight in the industry either. Most engineers I worked with didn't bother with Engineers Australia at all.
Not for locals, but for migrant engineers with overseas qualifications, it's the only way their qualifications are accepted here (unless you're qualified from UK/US).
I think they followed the CBA model and try and get people when they start uni and then just hope you don't ever stop signing up due to institutional inertia
Theyget students to join on free memberships, and theyre usually at open days trying to sell the benefits of their membership.
They look after corporate interests over actual engineers.
Local engineers don't have to, but migrants who want their time overseas qualifications recognised can only do so by paying EA $3k for the initial endorsement and $1k per year thereafter.
If you want to work as a Professional Engineer, it's forced.
Mostly they make a good $12k each time an immigrant needs their qualifications vetted (required).
Say you get chartered...they charge yearly fee and if not paid you loose chartered status. Almost like if universities would require yearly payments to keep your degree valid.
Absolute scam organisation.
They are a union of administrations whose function is to administer more union members.
A significant cohort of professionals actively avoid engaging with them. But weve infantilised our system to be reliant on their say so, in some industries.
To the explicit detriment of those industries and anything resembling innovation.
Engineers Australia is run by people who are incentivised to raise the prestige and relevancy of Engineers Australia and anyone who works for the organisation (especially themselves) by any means necessary. I’m sure there are some good people involved, but watching the org do it’s thing for many years I’ve come to the opinion that much of what they do is for appearances sake rather than of any actual value. That would be fine if you could just ignore them, but they are also actively trying to force their relevancy through things like engineers registration.
Hugely underpaid for technical knowledge requirement.
Lack of opportunities
Gatekeeping of engineering roles. A lot of technicians could move into the other roles but are gatekept by the degree. Similarly engineering adjacent degrees (physics, math) have a lack of a simplistic pathway to ‘upgrade’)
Lack of support for non standard progression.
Lack of definitive role in ‘engineering’ it’s all kind of a mishmash.
Same thing with most jobs. Doctors don’t want to be remote because it’s a huge responsibility being on call for the local hospital and have no break. They burn out real quick.
While you're absolutely on the money, the shortage is hitting metro areas now as well. I know schools in SEQ are dying for staff, some starting the 2023 school year 2-3 FTE teachers short of what they need.
I know several colleagues (myself included) that leveraged the situation as best we could, given we are fairly tied up by EB agreements (for better or for worse).
It's a bloodbath out there.
It's trickling into the middle to high SES too. I work at a middle to high SES school, minimal behavioural issues, great parent community and academic students. We've struggled to find positions to fill in many subject areas. Crazy times.
But also I don't even have permanency so I'm thinking of moving to a different school / out of teaching for a bit.
Nurses.
Paramedic here, a few new shiny hospitals have opened and half the wards and emergency departments can’t be utilised due to lack of staff. This has a flow on effect for patient care. As paramedics get caught in hospital for sometimes hours waiting to offload their patient. Resulting in less ambulances out on the road and more in bedblock/ramping.
A low number of job applicants usually means
1 job ad is too tight or narrow; many people are intimidated by it.
2 company has no brand name pull power. (Awareness)
3 pay isn't advertised or too low.
4 your office location is in an inconvenient location (or remote town)
No IT shortage. it’s been a dodgy racket for years that we import IT people to our own detriment. Australian companies offer shit pay then complain they can’t get decent people. Or just outsource.
The Australian computer society, who is supposed to support Australian tech workers, was/is making money by being involved in the tech worker import scheme.
Then we get the international students coming here to do masters degrees at our univer$ities and then get visas to work here, and we have non Australian people with zero experience with a useless masters degree also competing for entry level tech jobs.
Been in tech 20 + years now, seen a lot.
It depends - a LOT - on what sort of IT you're doing. Corporate ops type work has a lot more competition for roles and probably isn't really seeing much of a skills shortage.
But the engineering-y development-adjacent type roles even for ops, actual experience with containers, cloud services and such is well sought after in my experience.
One thing has changed though... it's becoming less interesting for a lot of orgs to hire the hipster-y due who tries to change the tools toolset every couple of months purely as a trend-driven choice.
It's also getting harder to break into that sort of space with less entry level roles.
> it's becoming less interesting for a lot of orgs to hire the hipster-y due who tries to change the tools toolset every couple of months purely as a trend-driven choice.
Feel like everything has kind of stabilized. When I started working as a programmer it was Rails and React. Now like 9 years it's still Rails and React but we now use TypeScript.
Yea I agree if you are talking about infrastructure or help desk IT.
I think programming is different.
But I think both have in common that everyone wants someone with experience. And pays pennies. So no one is qualified enough so the immigrants get the job. Also no one is willing to job hop like you see in other subreddits.
There's also other factors like you mentioned. It's booming and there is too much competition.
But to get to that level you either have to be really talented and learn everything yourself, or you learn from entry level jobs overseas and then come back here.
Which companies though? I have been in the IT industry and it's the most unstable career path I have seen. It's like the corporate companies here don't give a shit about their employees.
As someone trained as an early childhood educator, this is 100% the answer. Working with young children (and their parents) is stressful. When I could make more stacking shelves at Woolies, why wouldn’t I do that?
Genuine answer: I don’t know.
I’ve just had a baby so I’m not in the position to leave my job right now. But I’m almost finished my teaching degree and will hopefully use that to springboard into something else, I’m just not sure what.
It sucks to feel I have to leave because of the trash pay and lack of respect, I’m sure you’re well aware of what that’s like as an ex-teacher! 10 years and counting and I know I’m good at my job but my love for the children isn’t going to pay my every increasing grocery bill! It’s a shame the way educators and teachers are treated in this country because the good ones do end up leaving and, even with pay increases, will never return. The quality of early childhood education across the board is scarily piss poor.
Thank you!
Australia has a shortage of:
Good engineers
Good teachers
Good trades
Good (insert any profession really)
Problem is, "Good" is seen differently by different stakeholders. Good for employer means lower wage and extra hours on top of experience (as always). Good for co-workers means sociable and not causing any extra work for others (go read malicious compliance and petty tevenge stories about idiots in workforce). Good for clients means quick and efficient (think of stories about tradies screwing up, taking hours to do that, and leaving mess behind). Good, in general, means caring about own profession and trying to get better and be unthusiastic about it. Getting them all is quite hard.
TLDR: any profession (bar a couple that were heavily advertised in the past 5 years like IT) where you are committed and enjoy your field.
If it’s anything like it was 4-5 years ago when I was graduating, then we sure don’t need nurses. We just need to be willing to train and work around our nursing grads and students. So many people I studied with didn’t get AIN positions as they were asking for 25 hours minimum and we had another 1-3 placement shifts during the week plus study. Or retail etc paid better so why do worse job for less money.
My wife and I are both migrants but I came here a few years back to study with the intent of leaving after finishing uni.
I work in media which is a revolving door of employees though quite fortunate with my company with benefits and intend to stay for at least 5 years. We make so much money but axe the good ones because they're being paid the big bucks, then stuck again settling with juniors that don't have a clue what they're doing.
Partner is a different story though. She came over and followed me and decided to pursue her practice as a doctor after we got married overseas. She said they don't get that Australia needs doctors yet the process is so hard that it's financially crippling if you fail exams. Lucky me she passed all 2 exams in one go. Reckons it's because some migrants try to beat the system.
Hurts us who genuinely want to live here, contribute to society, not suck on taxpayers money, and be one with the land we live in.
We don’t have a worker shortage. We are short of easily exploitable who has skills but are willing to work for peanuts. So in another words, a shortage of skilled slaves.
If we need more of basically everything you can pretty much tell that it is bullshit.
Just means they wish they could pay lower wages and still have people rushing to get in.
Doesn't matter how many they bring in nothing will change you are dreaming if you think it will. Australia is one of the most expensive places in the world in many different ways end of story. It's a werid out of control pozi circle that can't be fixed.
Prices never go backwards that goes for anything
Law Enforcement as at critical point with staffing. They won't let it out to the media in case of an increase of crime rate.
Classes in prior to COVID in NSW were about 2-400 every quarter. The academy is now a ghost town and up to fifty Police are leaving NSWPF a week. No to mention that the only people that are leaving are school leavers, because nobody with any life experience can afford or wants to risk making the move.
Something seriously needs to happen soon or we will have next to no police within the next decade.
QLD POL have upped the MINIMUM wage for a starting cop to $100k and are offering 20% super and $20k cash to move across. It's a step in the right direction but I still don't believe it's enough to retain people from leaving a dying discipline.
I'm guessing the other problem is the good ones (with some emotional/social understanding) are most likely to leave and find other jobs while the "bad eggs" (bullies in uniform) are more liklely to stay. The end result is a police force with less understanding, eroding society's trust in it and reducing the attractiveness to "good" applicants.
Yeah I think a lot of that comes down to recruits consisting of only school leavers no older than 20 years of age. They have no life experience or real ability to communicate
We don't need construction workers at all. Work is drying up massively at the moment and a lot of good blokes don't have gigs. I hate the unions but they are often wanting overseas workers, like Chinese plasterers too. So you're double wrong.
Maybe in Vic but other states are heaving with big projects (WA & QLD).
Housing shortage will demand more homes and units too across all states.
I think the guys who will be getting quiet are those that burnt bridges, price gouged, didn't return calls etc when it was at its peak. That's my experience anyway... some of these trades think people have short memories. Those that didn't take it for granted continue to be highly sort after and are busy.
From my experience (Tier 3) there is still an immediate need for labour to complete the current work, though from speaking to our estimators new jobs do seem to be slowing down.
Vic Gov is delaying or scrapping a bunch of projects now, even the ones they are already building are in constant delay and cost overruns.
Agree with this. I’m working as a labourer in Sydney at the moment and was in Perth the last 8 months. People are crying out for labourers especially skilled ones. Doesn’t seem to be a shortage of work whatsoever. Pays decent too but long hours, you’ll take that though.
Doctors - both GP and specialists.
Surveyors - involved with every single aspect of construction, civil, mining etc BUT the global average age is 55. There are simply not enough.
Skilled trades.
Properly remunerated teachers.
Geotechnical engineer with 7 years experience. Salary $135000 plus about 20k bonus plus overtime. Good working conditions.
We are screaming for good graduates but the quality being produced out of uni is low in general.
Do we actually need more, though, or just better pay and conditions so current RNs don't leave the field. Almost half one side of my family are involved in healthcare. Drs and rns and most of them now have higher paid jobs outside those fields. They would gladly go back if they would get paid the same as their current jobs
Yes, need more.
The two are connected: the pay is insufficient in large part because they are overworked. If staffing levels were better, job stress is lower, and the pay is less of an issue (as long as it's adequate).
The same with teachers.
The government is using immigration as an economic stimulus tool. They know a global down turn is around the corner and don't care that the massive current levels of migration is crippling working class Australian families.
They will accept most professions at present. Good luck to those seeking somewhere to live, though.
For a 40 year old, would this be a good career to start over in? A year or two at TAFE? Or is uni a better way to go? I'm in WA but don't necessarily want to join the FIFO route...
IT wages are the same as 10 years ago. It is ridiculous and based on what I hear there are many hundreds of resumes for any job position. Good people are hard to find as always but it's also harder to find them when so many people are applying for the same job.
Tradesmen/handymen.
Sparkie today came to look at my busted air con unit that on the phone I told him would need replacing.
Was out and back in his car in his ten minutes to tell me 'yep, it's broken. It needs replacing'. Sent me a quote for $6k and another seperate invoice for $160 for the 'technician callout'.
$160 to tell me something that is broken is actually broken.
Happens a lot these days because you have people wasting tradies times coming to look at stuff that never eventuates into work. Not saying your wasting anyone’s time just that a lot of people do so they need to recoup these costs.
If I need quotes, it’s an email with detailed photos and a clear scope of work. If they come need to come out ask if there is a fee. If they don’t tell you then try charge you, tell them to kick rocks.
I tried to reskill as a mechanic. I have electrical and IT background with some DIY mechanical as well (I rebuilt my own motorcycle from ground up) and there is a push for people that can fix EV's because they are basically just computers with wheels.
No one would touch me for an apprenticeship due to my age and the TAFE course requires you to already be in an apprenticeship for some reason.
Ended up getting my commercial drone pilots licence and doing a drone mapping course so I can do some surveying for the farmers in my area.
We truly don’t need skilled immigrants currently. The vast majority of these job listings are fake. We have skilled citizens and citizens that are able to learn here. We just need to make tafe and uni cheaper to get our citizens in there rather than using these institutions just to sap money out of internationals.
Australia needs:
* Agedcare and healthcare workers: the full gamut as nobody wants to deal with the large number of the old and infirmed; not even their own families
* Childcare workers: nobody wants to deal with other people's kids
* People with expertise and skills: Australia is a backwater. The ability to transform Government and companies to the online world has been hard based on what I can tell. The bureaucracy here would send a chill notice down Germany's back. Most senior level executives and their one-downs are clowns that can't do anything that invovles change
* People that want to work: office jobs and labour jobs. Purging a lot of the current workforce makes sense. Work culture is woeful and nasty. Lot's of incompetence and clowns
More importantly, Australia needs workplace/ employee laws reforms. There is too much deadwood, incompetence and passing the buck going on in Australia. Fortunately, Australia serves its purpose and continuing to pay workers high will sustain the high cost of living and relatively large profit pool in this simple and small market.
The future is very very bleak for the people and subsequent generations will adopt the spiritless mindsets, apathetic nature, materialistic ways and absolutly compliant nature that is overtly chipping away at the population's souls now.
Mostly identifying and spraying weeds along creeks and brush cutting, lots of tree planting. It’s heavy, sweaty work on your feet in the sun all day being exposed to carcinogens for minimum wage
To OP Re Bush Regen:
Bush Regen is often a gatway entry point into the environmental sector so you'll always have movement of staff. Contracts are highly competitive and come from state and local government, as well as private developers, most of which are only doing it as they are required to as an offset, not because they want to invest in the environment. Part (but not all) of the reason for the demand is often bush regen has a large proportion of backpacker or temporary workers which suits them in that often the roles are employed as casual by nature to work with seasons and growth periods. With the pandemic limiting temporary workers, it got pretty quiet as the staff skilled up and moved into other roles
I say this as someone in the environment sector with my partner a manager of a large bush regen company
I promise there is no IT specialists shortage. like many sectors there technically never enough fantastic IT specialists but that isnt the same. I'm completely convinced the narrative is pushed on purpose by tech companies just to lower the amount people need to be paid. Being an entry level Comsci graduate is harrowing.
Mechanics! Our last 10 hires have all been from overseas. We would happily hire 5 tomorrow if there were any around. Apprentices too! No young men want to be mechanics, and I don't blame them. Apprentice wages are horrific, and even when qualified pay is very average. Take into account you are expected to buy all your own tools, and it's easy to see why hiring is so difficult.
100% agreed. I'm a Chef and it's dire out there. It's a damn miracle to get someone actually qualified to apply for a job and then there's a 50/50 chance of them actually showing up for the interview.
It's that it pays too poorly.
There is enough Chefs are out there - they just jump ship.
For the amount of physical and mental strain required for the job, you would expect much better wages. But wages continue to be suppressed by bringing in workers from other countries - most of whom arrive here to study for the work.
Chefs need better pay, which from a supply and demand position means importing fewer workers.
As someone in the healthcare, I've noticed that there's a high demand for those professionals, like registered nurses, midwives, doctors, aged and disabled care workers, and social workers. It seems this is because of various reasons such as our aging population, the rise in chronic illnesses, and a heightened need for healthcare services.
Interesting comments here.
I am so cynical now that although I'm sure there are 'shortages' in a few sectors, particularly the care economy, I am automatically suspicious of vested interests.
After all these years of the skill shortage narrative and high migration rates to apparently deal with it, all I see is hordes of Uber drivers (I've never had one that is not an obvious migrant) and every house that has been sold on my street over the years being bought by recent migrants. Yet the narrative perpetuates.
Our living standards that matter are creeping backwards yet you can now get a packet of Pringles delivered at midnight by some poor Uber driver. What is a 'skill shortage' in that world?
Anecdotal of course, but seems consistent with experiences of others.
I think customer service for call centres/general support for Australian based companies is something we lack.
I think for “low” level work it pays really well and gives you great skills to branch out into IT which we also lack.
The shortage of medical doctors is artificial. Unnecessary requirements for medical certificates (just combine all leave types to personal leave). I bet it's cheaper (medicare) for everyone to get a default quarterly bloods and scans and a registered nurse would check it if it needs further diagnosis/escalation. Make most if not all drugs legal to buy without a presecription. It's not like it protects people getting addicted to drugs. There's enough meth and whatnot available to buy illegally. It's so ineffecient for no reason.
Most of the lab work can be automated, reading scans can be automated.
Electrical tradespeople. Aus is aiming for net zero and every single technology requires skilled electrical workers to install and/or maintain those technologies (eg solar, wind, battery storage, substations, transmission, electric vehicles, electrified rail). Get an electrical trade and it’s guaranteed work for the next 30+ years till retirement!
Is 40 too old to start an electrical apprenticeship? As in, would any electrician realistically take on a 40-year-old apprentice? I'd like to be involved in the renewables roll out
Any jobs to support the energy transition, e.g. electricians, electrical engineers, construction workers, renewable energy developers, financiers, etc. etc.
See page 24 for heal profession vacancy data from the interim report 'Independent review of health practitioner regulatory settings' commissioned by National Cabinet last year.
Since 2019 occupational therapy positions were harder to fill than physio, nurses and GPs.
Report: https://www.regulatoryreform.gov.au/sites/default/files/FINAL%20Independent%20Review%20of%20Overseas%20Health%20Practitioner%20Regulatory%20Settings%20-%20Interim%20Report\_1.pdf
These are too broad. "Engineers" doesn't mean anything - there's about 700 different types of engineer. Same with IT specialists.
You can't grab an open cut coal mine engineer and get them to design a tram braking system.
For those who say "but we have enough [insert job] here in Australia!", what we need is skills not certificates.
It takes years to produce competent workers.
Tradespeople of any sort but more so in the mechanical side,fitters,boilermaker/ welders car / truck mechanics, A grade electricians.
The short fall in all trades is huge,I'm gen x and where out out of the force in 5 to 10 years and the the numbers coming in are a faction of what is needed the amount of business looking of these trade I've not seen since I started working in the mid eighties.
It's a world wide shortage and immigration will not fix the shortage,we live in interesting times,im a mechanical fitter so I'm seeing these problems first hand
I'm a migrant. I work in the maritime survey sector. There's essentially no tertiary training pathway in Australia in this sector for any of the core skills involved, but paradoxically there's a massive program by the federal government to map Australia's EEZ, especially around WA, NE Qld, NT. So with a huge demand for our skills but almost no Aussies entering the industry at a high level other than those being trained as naval officers, there's currently no choice but to take us foreigners. My office is majority non-Aussie by about 3:1. Collectively I reckon the sector takes maybe fifty to a hundred and fifty migrants a year. But there are probably lots of other examples of small, below radar sectors in a similar situation. Australia for one reason or another just doesn't train for certain skills.
They don't train for certain skills because they need people with those skills to teach those skills to new people coming through. Someone isn't going to be a teach those skills when in demand as they can make money hand over fist doing it themselves rather than teaching.. For example. In WA they are struggling to get electrical teaches to teach the new batch of apprentices because there is more money in doing it themselves. For a much more niche industry like yours there would be little to noone willing to teach so they have to get migrants in
The government understanding and understating of hydro is comical. Both in the remuneration side of things and pathways for registration. How can you be doing a highly trained role that expects your concentration permanently on three different monitors looking at multiple variables for 79 k a year. That’s how little value they see because they do not and will not understand just how specialised the role is.
I’ve got a background in Radar, but could get some qualis in spatial science.. is this the kind of degree that would get me in the door? What is your usual day to day? Also what’s the average salary like in this line of work?
Spatial science is definitely useful for my line of the business in cartography/GIS and data processing, although it's a really niche subset of GIS with its own standards and heavy use of AutoCAD as much as GIS packages. If you want to get into survey, the degrees unfortunately just don't exist here. Studying abroad or joining the navy would be your best bet, or studying conventional land survey and transitioning to marine survey (one guy at work did this). The hardest part is getting in the door. Once you have some experience in the industry, progression can be rapid. Anything from $70K for entry-level GIS to north of $150K for a senior surveyor. Plus lots of TOIL if you're a surveyor out on the boats. Lots of money sloshing around so bonuses are pretty common, too.
Thanks for the detailed reply. I, asked because I’m actually in the Navy right now and considering what I might do in the future if/when I decide to rejoin civilian street. Might see what opportunities lie around work in order to get some more courses under my belt now.
No worries! Look into the HIPP program and the contractors on the list. They all work with the AHO, and hiring ex-navy is common.
And there are skills available in Australia which employers try to assert are unavailable so they can avoid training costs. Recently, Qantas went to the government asking to be allowed to import pilots for its new Airbus 220s. They claimed "no qualified pilots" in Australia. That was true because nobody in Australia flew the A220. But about 3 weeks of ground school and some sim would qualify any A320 pilot for the A220 - and there are hundreds of A320 co-pilots in Australia. Qantas didn't want to pay the miniscule cost of the training school. They didn't even save much on sim flying because any overseas pilots would need just about the same sim time as locals. The main way Q would have saved is by not disrupting existing types by promoting co-pilots from their existing fleets.
Same deal with doctors. There’s a mountain of junior doctors waiting for specialist training, and a shortage of specialists. Importing specialists is like importing A220 captains, it just screws over the juniors trying to rise up in the ranks.
>below radar Is this a pun?
what occupation pathway does this fall under and who does the skills assessment for this?
The qualified surveyors are assessed by the Geospatial Council of Australia, both for migration purposes and ongoing certification. All allied professions like mine (cartography) are through VETASSESS I think.
I used to be an engineer in a previous career. The perpetual engineer shortage is pure bullshit. It's garbage messaging from the likes of Engineers Australia. If anything there is a lack of opportunities especially for younger engineers coming out of uni. I always felt sorry for the grass coming out of engineering schools that couldn't find anything in their field of study.
I’m not an engineer, but have several mates who graduated from engineering. Some of them went to work in engineering related jobs, most went into other industries after uni. After a few years, the blokes who worked at engineering gigs shifted their careers to other fields as progression and opportunities were severely limited. These guys are some of the smartest people I know, it’s really a shame that we don’t have the right opportunities for them.
A friend did a B. Eng and IT double degree and did both early career. IT blows Eng out of the water in pay, conditions and opportunities. If you’re smart and technically inclined, you would be stupid to choose to be an engineer. As an example, 7 years out and we are easily double and more an average engineers salary, always hounded on LinkedIn with jobs and plenty of free time plus work from home. And professional satisfaction of problem solving in large complex enterprise problems. Choose IT kids.
> IT blows Eng out of the water in pay what exactly does your friend do? Just sayign "IT" is incredibly vague.
B. Elec Eng and B. Comp Sci here, recently got made redundant from an Integration Engineering role after 3 years, so I'm currently job searching. When you say "IT" that's very broad, could you specify any roles or companies you mean? I'm really at a crossroads with what to do with my career. It'd be nice to be paid to do not much, but it's also nice to get well paid to do work you enjoy or has tangible positive impact on the world. TIA
Same with me I shifted out to another path that pays alot better and has more opportunities.
Im an engineer with 5yrs experience. What other path did you shift to?
Not op but after 4~5 years of working, now I’m on my way to change from mechanical/biomedical engineering to data science with a part time postgraduate course. I realised I like to code and work with data.
Nice! I’ve been doing part time software engineering at uni too. Have you been looking for jobs yet?
I moved out of traditional engineering work into consulting. I still use my technical skills somewhat, but I've found consulting has higher salary possibilities and also lets you develop your broader skills beyond just the technical ones.
Junior engineers get paid poorly, but mainly cuz they're more of a hindrance than help until they've got 5-10yrs technical experience. Until then, it's really just a training course with a salary, like an apprenticeship almost. Attrition then means the ones that stay get massive pay rises. It's kinda why if you look at the pay scales, grad engineers are near the bottom in terms of income straight out of uni, yet at the same time, engineerin managers are generally consistently in the top 10 best paid jobs.
Maybe civil engineering is different from other engineering industries but in civil, around 85% of people never leave the lowest pay grade. Sure, managers get paid well but most people never become managers. They sit there being paid "hinderence" wages for ever.
Experienced this. Civil engineer for 10 years. Went from local gov to private consulting to senior technical public service to private major project management and the whole time the wage was within a $10 per hour variance, the stress was not. Felt like you accept more stress and worse hours for $2 an hour and a better linkedin profile with more precarity. Left it to go back to uni and do medicine. Much happier in both the work and the stability of healthcare.
It's a crappy way to do it too. As a grad you're at the mercy of the internal training that's offered. When I started out I had nice people but terrible training and I stuck it out for far too long. By the time I knew my arsehole from my earhole I was so bored by all the tedious busy work that I wanted out of the whole industry. Moved from electrical to software in my 30s and infinitely happier now.
Yep, I'm a recent mech eng grad. I ask for work and get nothing besides data entry. I'm so bored and frustrated, and have made my feelings known at work but still it doesnt change. Only mid level or above get actual work. I can't see myself doing this for long. Probably gonna sell out to finance/ consulting like a good portion of my mates already have.
Agreed. A few days ago on reddit someone tried to argue there was a shortage. She must have been a bot or a misinformed troll!
+1 I ended up in a niche mechanical engineering specialisation that was quite different from the niche I trained in, but it was a dead end unless I moved overseas (think automotive industry). I spent about 5 years trying to redeploy into different fields. Too old for grad jobs, lacking specialised experience for higher grade jobs. I had to go back to school and re-train in my 40s. Now I'm in allied health. I'm sure there are some engineering fields where they're crying out for workers. But there are plenty of underutilized local engineers with training and/or experience in fields that are not in demand at all and struggling to find work.
This strikes so true and why I recommend to my kids to not pursue engineering as a career. To progress in an engineering career you most often have to become more and more specialised. The more specialised you are, the less jobs are available in that field. If you want to move or change career even slightly you’re taking a massive pay cut or starting again. As to the “engineers shortage”, mining companies have a shortage of engineers who they want to pay wages from 2 decades ago to live in the sticks and have no life. Why be an engineer when you can earn as much as most engineers holding a Stop/Slow sign in a metropolitan area?
A caveat to this - and one of my struggles in my engineering career - is that actual specialist engineering work is treated as a conduit to management. If you're a good technical engineer, you'll get promoted until you don't do any engineering work any more. I was a good technical engineer. When I chased the money into project management and product management, I found that the work didn't come naturally to me and I hated it. Management is an entirely different skillset to engineering. There's some overlap in personality types, but to be a good manager takes a very different person than a good engineer. Simplistically it's an introvert/extrovert divide. I thrive working on difficult problems and communicating results - chasing people and coordinating stuff is difficult and draining for me. I'm not a complete sociopath, but in my late 40s now I've reflected enough to know myself and my strengths. I don't want to manage because it's not my strength. If I had thrived and progressed in management roles I may have been more portable. Instead, I deliberately chased demotions and bricked myself in to technical roles where I could do proper engineering work. And then couldn't transition to technical
I am a software engineer and in my industry this particular problem is slowly starting to be addressed with the introduction of technical specialist career progression pathways that pay equivalent to their corresponding people management roles. This is great in my opinion. The fork can be taken from senior engineer up. I ended up on the management pathway myself. I was working for a company in free-fall and my manager resigned. There was no clear successor. He was a great manager. Recalling how bad it was to be managed by a poor manager I looked around my organisation to see if I could guess who might step up. Most of my colleagues were nice enough but I didn’t fancy being managed by any of them. I figured if we’re going to get a bad manager it may as well be me, at which point I went to senior management and proposed it. I was surprised when they accepted. The company hobbled along for another year before going into receivership. It was long enough to get some management experience and find another management role. I was surprised to discover it seemed relatively easy to me, almost to the point where I sometimes question the need for the role all together - although at times its desperately needed. To me it feels like an opportunity to remove a lot of red tape and help my folks focus on what matters. I also get a lot more autonomy to decide what is going to move the needle without being constantly second guessed by worried,, non technical but well meaning managers. I should add that I remain highly technical and hands on, it helps decision making, it helps earn the trust and respect of my folks. I am now into my 8th year as a manager and now that technical pathways are available I sometimes flirt with the idea of jumping the fork. I probably won’t but I do wonder sometimes.
The irony that I'm currently in allied health, hating it, and considering going back to uni for engineering! Do you mind if I ask what allied health role you're in?
Audiology. I was an NVH engineer for a good chunk of _that_ career, so there's a sequitur... but less common ground than I would have assumed.
Me too. At least for chemical engineering in manufacturing. After four redundancies I gave up and moved on.
My son couldn’t get a job when he graduated chem engineering- his academic history was a bit chequered but he ended up with an honours anyway. He’s a firey now. Loves it. Was also the only firey on course with a uni degree, lol (they printed that info in the graduation booklet)
Could it be theres a significant need for engineers in regional, remote and rural Australia and fifo as opposed to cities? And I agree those are very specific lifestyles that dont suit many people. My industry which is healthcare is the same, huge demand in country, regional areas, city is super competitive, especially the closer to cbd u get. Despite this i dont want to and will avoid moving to outer suburbs, tried the 70km each way commute (rip life) and rural / country just isnt for me. I suspect similar could be the case for engineers?
Lots of the “engineering” required in FIFO isn’t design, it’s basically field technicians. Of course that’s required, but I looked into it after I graduated in systems engineering in the 2000s and realised how slim the STEM opps were here and moved into consulting.
In coal seam gas, our engineers are just project managers who don't get paid like project managers. Worst job in the field in my opinion
There is a shortage of engineers but not on the average. The shortage is in the middle. Competent, experienced engineers are in very short supply - mostly because many of the big companies don't have a pipeline to turn the young engineers (of which there is indeed a glut) into experienced, technically savvy, engineers. That and almost no companies have a pathway to technical seniority these days - anyone who wants to be promoted needs to go down the engineering management or C suite path if they want to earn the big bucks. Even companies that used to be a bastion of technical expertise, and took a lot of pride in that, have moved to a model based on hiring technical expertise off the street, rather than developing it internally. This, combined with practices that make it almost impossible to work as a technical engineer if you are the primary carer of a child, means that the average age of women in technical engineering roles is 27 in Australia. Heaps of grass vying for very few mid level engineering roles mean there is a shortage of mid and senior technical engineers.
100% this, to get up today in big eng companies you have to post on LinkedIn rather than get better in engineering. Big consultancies have become bloated management firms, almost to the likes of Pwc, just advise but never commit to actual engineering. Any specialized or serious stuff is outsourced to smaller subbies. Grads are encouraged to be leaders and managers, actual engineers are frowned upon and called introverts by the big talkers. There is very few grads who even get proper chance to do technical stuff. Everyone is overworked and have no time to train them and companies sure won't give budget for training. I see this new generation of engineers lost in this fake world of client relationships and leadership. They are being led to believe everything but engineering matters, only chit chat and leadership. Except there won't be anyone to lead very soon.
>Even companies that used to be a bastion of technical expertise, and took a lot of pride in that, have moved to a model based on hiring technical expertise off the street, rather than developing it internally. The culture of deliberate, structured learning in engineering consultancies is a thing of the past. Of the companies I've worked at, the expectation is the individual must shoulder the burden of learning, on the job, to produce deliverables reliant on that learning. Educating their workforce beyond what is taught at uni is a derided concept - very ruthless, "sink or swim" mentality there. The dearth of senior engineers means that they are too overworked to bring up the next generation of junior and mid-level engies. In my field, the boom-bust cycles in infrastructure mean all the experienced people move away when governments change hands and projects dry up. Then everyone has to be brought back at a premium when the next cycle spins up.
There is no shortage. Some department compares our economy with other more industrialised ones like Germany or the USA, and finds that they have a larger portion of their workforce in engineering, therefore if we're to be successful like them, we must have a shortage. The reality is as cynical as it can be, it's only a shortage in order to keep wages from going too high.
Was looking for a comment like this! Anyone who thinks the shortage is a lie has obviously not needed to hire recently. There’s no one out there. We’ve brought in a few from overseas but the sponsorship is a pain and then they end up being quite hit or miss.
Same for lawyers. Experienced corporate lawyers are in high demand. Inexperienced ones may as well be a well qualified paperweight.
Same with scientists. Theres scut work and they either leave the industry or leave the country.
Engineer here. I agree. What industry wants is a perpetual supply of engineers with 3-8 years experience who are willing to be paid a smidge above a graduate salary. But they'd rather not have to pay graduates to actually learn on the job, which results in a small supply of local engineers in that category, so they try to fill this gap with immigrant engineers. I do some part time uni teaching for final year eng students these days. Recently the students have been having no trouble getting jobs. The word is well and truly out that engineering grads are generally pretty switched on, and grads are more aware they don't have to work as engineers just because they did that degree. The result is a broader spread of careers being taken up than were back when I did my degree. Engineers Australia will push for their own interests. Which is more immigration so they can certify immigrant engineering skills. Government needs to stop listening to them.
There is no shortage of people with an engeering degree. There is a massive shortage of competency with depth of experience in a particular discipline. And also a massive lack of adequate mentor ship for those comming through to build that competence, and results in individuals not staying in a position long enough to develop true depth of experience. This of course manifests as lack of suitable candidates for mid-senior positions, especially in lower paid public service positions.
Engineers Australia is an anti-union
Why would Engineers Australia want a glut of engineers?
I'd say more members -> more income and more significance as a larger company.
Are their membership forced to join, or just stupid?
Not forced. Engineers Australia accreditation itself doesn't really hold weight in the industry either. Most engineers I worked with didn't bother with Engineers Australia at all.
Not for locals, but for migrant engineers with overseas qualifications, it's the only way their qualifications are accepted here (unless you're qualified from UK/US).
I think they followed the CBA model and try and get people when they start uni and then just hope you don't ever stop signing up due to institutional inertia
Theyget students to join on free memberships, and theyre usually at open days trying to sell the benefits of their membership. They look after corporate interests over actual engineers.
Local engineers don't have to, but migrants who want their time overseas qualifications recognised can only do so by paying EA $3k for the initial endorsement and $1k per year thereafter.
If you want to work as a Professional Engineer, it's forced. Mostly they make a good $12k each time an immigrant needs their qualifications vetted (required).
Migration skills assessment income.
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I'll take the Australian Computer Society for a dollar.. the old head literally owned a 457 factory
Say you get chartered...they charge yearly fee and if not paid you loose chartered status. Almost like if universities would require yearly payments to keep your degree valid. Absolute scam organisation.
They are a union of administrations whose function is to administer more union members. A significant cohort of professionals actively avoid engaging with them. But weve infantilised our system to be reliant on their say so, in some industries. To the explicit detriment of those industries and anything resembling innovation.
Mining companies want cheap engineers willing to work in shit conditions for the same money they paid them 20 years ago.
I'm still trying to work out why any engineer would join such an anti-member pseudo-union.
Engineers Australia is run by people who are incentivised to raise the prestige and relevancy of Engineers Australia and anyone who works for the organisation (especially themselves) by any means necessary. I’m sure there are some good people involved, but watching the org do it’s thing for many years I’ve come to the opinion that much of what they do is for appearances sake rather than of any actual value. That would be fine if you could just ignore them, but they are also actively trying to force their relevancy through things like engineers registration.
There revenue is largely made off certifying overseas degrees. CEO is on a $3m salary last time I checked.
IT is the same. Always has been. There's no shortage of workers. Just a shortage willing to work for peanuts.
Hugely underpaid for technical knowledge requirement. Lack of opportunities Gatekeeping of engineering roles. A lot of technicians could move into the other roles but are gatekept by the degree. Similarly engineering adjacent degrees (physics, math) have a lack of a simplistic pathway to ‘upgrade’) Lack of support for non standard progression. Lack of definitive role in ‘engineering’ it’s all kind of a mishmash.
Thanks for injecting some reality into the debate. I thought that was the case.
Teachers at schools people don't want to work at - ie low SES and rural/remote.
Every teacher I've met wants to get out, over worked, under paid, cant actually do anything to enforce rules or discipline students
Shortage is starting to flow into middle of the road SES schools (especially in maths and science in high schools).
yet they still wont give teachers permanency lmao
Exactly there's not a shortage of teachers there's a shortage of attractive positions.
Same thing with most jobs. Doctors don’t want to be remote because it’s a huge responsibility being on call for the local hospital and have no break. They burn out real quick.
While you're absolutely on the money, the shortage is hitting metro areas now as well. I know schools in SEQ are dying for staff, some starting the 2023 school year 2-3 FTE teachers short of what they need. I know several colleagues (myself included) that leveraged the situation as best we could, given we are fairly tied up by EB agreements (for better or for worse). It's a bloodbath out there.
2-3 FTE short? Rookie numbers. My kids' school is 14 short.
What does ses stand for
Socio economic status. So low SES = poor.
It's trickling into the middle to high SES too. I work at a middle to high SES school, minimal behavioural issues, great parent community and academic students. We've struggled to find positions to fill in many subject areas. Crazy times. But also I don't even have permanency so I'm thinking of moving to a different school / out of teaching for a bit.
Nurses. Paramedic here, a few new shiny hospitals have opened and half the wards and emergency departments can’t be utilised due to lack of staff. This has a flow on effect for patient care. As paramedics get caught in hospital for sometimes hours waiting to offload their patient. Resulting in less ambulances out on the road and more in bedblock/ramping.
Sounds more like closed beds to me. Happens when the funding isn’t there.
Definitely funding is a huge part. Tough sell getting school leavers to do nursing too.
A low number of job applicants usually means 1 job ad is too tight or narrow; many people are intimidated by it. 2 company has no brand name pull power. (Awareness) 3 pay isn't advertised or too low. 4 your office location is in an inconvenient location (or remote town)
No IT shortage. it’s been a dodgy racket for years that we import IT people to our own detriment. Australian companies offer shit pay then complain they can’t get decent people. Or just outsource. The Australian computer society, who is supposed to support Australian tech workers, was/is making money by being involved in the tech worker import scheme. Then we get the international students coming here to do masters degrees at our univer$ities and then get visas to work here, and we have non Australian people with zero experience with a useless masters degree also competing for entry level tech jobs. Been in tech 20 + years now, seen a lot.
It depends - a LOT - on what sort of IT you're doing. Corporate ops type work has a lot more competition for roles and probably isn't really seeing much of a skills shortage. But the engineering-y development-adjacent type roles even for ops, actual experience with containers, cloud services and such is well sought after in my experience. One thing has changed though... it's becoming less interesting for a lot of orgs to hire the hipster-y due who tries to change the tools toolset every couple of months purely as a trend-driven choice. It's also getting harder to break into that sort of space with less entry level roles.
> it's becoming less interesting for a lot of orgs to hire the hipster-y due who tries to change the tools toolset every couple of months purely as a trend-driven choice. Feel like everything has kind of stabilized. When I started working as a programmer it was Rails and React. Now like 9 years it's still Rails and React but we now use TypeScript.
The old head used to own a 457 company and advised the government on shortages
>The Australian computer society Sounds like Engineers Australia
Yea I agree if you are talking about infrastructure or help desk IT. I think programming is different. But I think both have in common that everyone wants someone with experience. And pays pennies. So no one is qualified enough so the immigrants get the job. Also no one is willing to job hop like you see in other subreddits. There's also other factors like you mentioned. It's booming and there is too much competition.
ACS is a scam.
What kind of IT work are we talking about? A decent programmer is making $80-$130 per hour depending on skill level and language.
But to get to that level you either have to be really talented and learn everything yourself, or you learn from entry level jobs overseas and then come back here.
Which companies though? I have been in the IT industry and it's the most unstable career path I have seen. It's like the corporate companies here don't give a shit about their employees.
Most companies in Sydney or Melbourne pay $80/hour for a mid junior-senior developer. Native communicators can get $100-$120.
We need anyone that will accept low pay. /s
why the /s that literally what the government and business groups are crying out
There is no shortage. There is just a shortage of employees willing to work for well below market wages.
Finally someone said it. Or work in remote areas with shit conditions for a very average wage.
As someone trained as an early childhood educator, this is 100% the answer. Working with young children (and their parents) is stressful. When I could make more stacking shelves at Woolies, why wouldn’t I do that?
Why didn't you? Serious question.
Genuine answer: I don’t know. I’ve just had a baby so I’m not in the position to leave my job right now. But I’m almost finished my teaching degree and will hopefully use that to springboard into something else, I’m just not sure what.
Thanks for your reply! You sound smart so - as an ex-teacher - don't stay too long in teaching. It will curdle your spirit. Good luck!
It sucks to feel I have to leave because of the trash pay and lack of respect, I’m sure you’re well aware of what that’s like as an ex-teacher! 10 years and counting and I know I’m good at my job but my love for the children isn’t going to pay my every increasing grocery bill! It’s a shame the way educators and teachers are treated in this country because the good ones do end up leaving and, even with pay increases, will never return. The quality of early childhood education across the board is scarily piss poor. Thank you!
I cant believe I had to scroll this far to find this comment!
There will always be a shortage according to corporate interests who's biggest cost centre is labour.
Australia has a shortage of: Good engineers Good teachers Good trades Good (insert any profession really) Problem is, "Good" is seen differently by different stakeholders. Good for employer means lower wage and extra hours on top of experience (as always). Good for co-workers means sociable and not causing any extra work for others (go read malicious compliance and petty tevenge stories about idiots in workforce). Good for clients means quick and efficient (think of stories about tradies screwing up, taking hours to do that, and leaving mess behind). Good, in general, means caring about own profession and trying to get better and be unthusiastic about it. Getting them all is quite hard. TLDR: any profession (bar a couple that were heavily advertised in the past 5 years like IT) where you are committed and enjoy your field.
Healthcare workers.
If it’s anything like it was 4-5 years ago when I was graduating, then we sure don’t need nurses. We just need to be willing to train and work around our nursing grads and students. So many people I studied with didn’t get AIN positions as they were asking for 25 hours minimum and we had another 1-3 placement shifts during the week plus study. Or retail etc paid better so why do worse job for less money.
Ones that will work but need no housing
Reminds me of the dog with the frisbee. Only work, no live.
We need good politicians. Apologies for the oxymoron.
My wife and I are both migrants but I came here a few years back to study with the intent of leaving after finishing uni. I work in media which is a revolving door of employees though quite fortunate with my company with benefits and intend to stay for at least 5 years. We make so much money but axe the good ones because they're being paid the big bucks, then stuck again settling with juniors that don't have a clue what they're doing. Partner is a different story though. She came over and followed me and decided to pursue her practice as a doctor after we got married overseas. She said they don't get that Australia needs doctors yet the process is so hard that it's financially crippling if you fail exams. Lucky me she passed all 2 exams in one go. Reckons it's because some migrants try to beat the system. Hurts us who genuinely want to live here, contribute to society, not suck on taxpayers money, and be one with the land we live in.
We don’t have a worker shortage. We are short of easily exploitable who has skills but are willing to work for peanuts. So in another words, a shortage of skilled slaves.
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Summed up things so well!
People willing to work in regional areas
They cut visa pathways to most foreign employees living and working remotely in July, so it’s only going to get worse.
If we need more of basically everything you can pretty much tell that it is bullshit. Just means they wish they could pay lower wages and still have people rushing to get in.
Doesn't matter how many they bring in nothing will change you are dreaming if you think it will. Australia is one of the most expensive places in the world in many different ways end of story. It's a werid out of control pozi circle that can't be fixed. Prices never go backwards that goes for anything
We need a shit load of nurses but we also want them to work with crap pay and conditions so we import them.
Federal government occupation demand forecasts: https://www.jobsandskills.gov.au/publications/towards-national-jobs-and-skills-roadmap
Law Enforcement as at critical point with staffing. They won't let it out to the media in case of an increase of crime rate. Classes in prior to COVID in NSW were about 2-400 every quarter. The academy is now a ghost town and up to fifty Police are leaving NSWPF a week. No to mention that the only people that are leaving are school leavers, because nobody with any life experience can afford or wants to risk making the move. Something seriously needs to happen soon or we will have next to no police within the next decade. QLD POL have upped the MINIMUM wage for a starting cop to $100k and are offering 20% super and $20k cash to move across. It's a step in the right direction but I still don't believe it's enough to retain people from leaving a dying discipline.
I'm guessing the other problem is the good ones (with some emotional/social understanding) are most likely to leave and find other jobs while the "bad eggs" (bullies in uniform) are more liklely to stay. The end result is a police force with less understanding, eroding society's trust in it and reducing the attractiveness to "good" applicants.
Yeah I think a lot of that comes down to recruits consisting of only school leavers no older than 20 years of age. They have no life experience or real ability to communicate
Construction workers, but the unions won't have a bar of it. Also, basically all roles in the care/health industry.
We don't need construction workers at all. Work is drying up massively at the moment and a lot of good blokes don't have gigs. I hate the unions but they are often wanting overseas workers, like Chinese plasterers too. So you're double wrong.
Maybe in Vic but other states are heaving with big projects (WA & QLD). Housing shortage will demand more homes and units too across all states. I think the guys who will be getting quiet are those that burnt bridges, price gouged, didn't return calls etc when it was at its peak. That's my experience anyway... some of these trades think people have short memories. Those that didn't take it for granted continue to be highly sort after and are busy.
From my experience (Tier 3) there is still an immediate need for labour to complete the current work, though from speaking to our estimators new jobs do seem to be slowing down. Vic Gov is delaying or scrapping a bunch of projects now, even the ones they are already building are in constant delay and cost overruns.
Agree with this. I’m working as a labourer in Sydney at the moment and was in Perth the last 8 months. People are crying out for labourers especially skilled ones. Doesn’t seem to be a shortage of work whatsoever. Pays decent too but long hours, you’ll take that though.
Medical is in dire need this is evidently by the long wait times for any medical service.
Doctors - both GP and specialists. Surveyors - involved with every single aspect of construction, civil, mining etc BUT the global average age is 55. There are simply not enough. Skilled trades. Properly remunerated teachers.
Geotechnical engineer with 7 years experience. Salary $135000 plus about 20k bonus plus overtime. Good working conditions. We are screaming for good graduates but the quality being produced out of uni is low in general.
Registered nurses
Do we actually need more, though, or just better pay and conditions so current RNs don't leave the field. Almost half one side of my family are involved in healthcare. Drs and rns and most of them now have higher paid jobs outside those fields. They would gladly go back if they would get paid the same as their current jobs
Yes, need more. The two are connected: the pay is insufficient in large part because they are overworked. If staffing levels were better, job stress is lower, and the pay is less of an issue (as long as it's adequate). The same with teachers.
We don't need IT specialists really. We need proper career progression with companies restarting training internally
Tradies, but their lobbying group is strong enough that they got exempt from the immigration quota increases recently.
The government is using immigration as an economic stimulus tool. They know a global down turn is around the corner and don't care that the massive current levels of migration is crippling working class Australian families. They will accept most professions at present. Good luck to those seeking somewhere to live, though.
Uber drivers, and we'll get them, by God
Surveying - all types
For a 40 year old, would this be a good career to start over in? A year or two at TAFE? Or is uni a better way to go? I'm in WA but don't necessarily want to join the FIFO route...
IT wages are the same as 10 years ago. It is ridiculous and based on what I hear there are many hundreds of resumes for any job position. Good people are hard to find as always but it's also harder to find them when so many people are applying for the same job.
Speech therapists, occupational therapists, child psychologists. The waitlists are insane literally years.
Please no teachers. They treat us like shit and they will continue to do that as long as they have steady supply from fresh teachers from overseas
Tradesmen/handymen. Sparkie today came to look at my busted air con unit that on the phone I told him would need replacing. Was out and back in his car in his ten minutes to tell me 'yep, it's broken. It needs replacing'. Sent me a quote for $6k and another seperate invoice for $160 for the 'technician callout'. $160 to tell me something that is broken is actually broken.
Happens a lot these days because you have people wasting tradies times coming to look at stuff that never eventuates into work. Not saying your wasting anyone’s time just that a lot of people do so they need to recoup these costs. If I need quotes, it’s an email with detailed photos and a clear scope of work. If they come need to come out ask if there is a fee. If they don’t tell you then try charge you, tell them to kick rocks.
Basically he charged you $160 to give you a quote. Total rip off, lets get more tradies coming to this country.
How about we train more Australia’s, I’m in hospo and can’t get into construction. Mature age apprentice wages are a joke, not enough to live off.
I tried to reskill as a mechanic. I have electrical and IT background with some DIY mechanical as well (I rebuilt my own motorcycle from ground up) and there is a push for people that can fix EV's because they are basically just computers with wheels. No one would touch me for an apprenticeship due to my age and the TAFE course requires you to already be in an apprenticeship for some reason. Ended up getting my commercial drone pilots licence and doing a drone mapping course so I can do some surveying for the farmers in my area.
We truly don’t need skilled immigrants currently. The vast majority of these job listings are fake. We have skilled citizens and citizens that are able to learn here. We just need to make tafe and uni cheaper to get our citizens in there rather than using these institutions just to sap money out of internationals.
Australia needs: * Agedcare and healthcare workers: the full gamut as nobody wants to deal with the large number of the old and infirmed; not even their own families * Childcare workers: nobody wants to deal with other people's kids * People with expertise and skills: Australia is a backwater. The ability to transform Government and companies to the online world has been hard based on what I can tell. The bureaucracy here would send a chill notice down Germany's back. Most senior level executives and their one-downs are clowns that can't do anything that invovles change * People that want to work: office jobs and labour jobs. Purging a lot of the current workforce makes sense. Work culture is woeful and nasty. Lot's of incompetence and clowns More importantly, Australia needs workplace/ employee laws reforms. There is too much deadwood, incompetence and passing the buck going on in Australia. Fortunately, Australia serves its purpose and continuing to pay workers high will sustain the high cost of living and relatively large profit pool in this simple and small market. The future is very very bleak for the people and subsequent generations will adopt the spiritless mindsets, apathetic nature, materialistic ways and absolutly compliant nature that is overtly chipping away at the population's souls now.
As a teacher, I say we need more teachers.
Wtf does a bush regenerator do? And does it pay ok? Sounds more entertaining than sitting behind a desk
Mostly identifying and spraying weeds along creeks and brush cutting, lots of tree planting. It’s heavy, sweaty work on your feet in the sun all day being exposed to carcinogens for minimum wage
To OP Re Bush Regen: Bush Regen is often a gatway entry point into the environmental sector so you'll always have movement of staff. Contracts are highly competitive and come from state and local government, as well as private developers, most of which are only doing it as they are required to as an offset, not because they want to invest in the environment. Part (but not all) of the reason for the demand is often bush regen has a large proportion of backpacker or temporary workers which suits them in that often the roles are employed as casual by nature to work with seasons and growth periods. With the pandemic limiting temporary workers, it got pretty quiet as the staff skilled up and moved into other roles I say this as someone in the environment sector with my partner a manager of a large bush regen company
Qualified chefs with correct training. There are none coming through, and it's hurting the hospitality sector a lot.
I promise there is no IT specialists shortage. like many sectors there technically never enough fantastic IT specialists but that isnt the same. I'm completely convinced the narrative is pushed on purpose by tech companies just to lower the amount people need to be paid. Being an entry level Comsci graduate is harrowing.
I feel like we have a bigger problem retaining doctors. The churn at the GP level is ridiculous where I am.
Mechanics! Our last 10 hires have all been from overseas. We would happily hire 5 tomorrow if there were any around. Apprentices too! No young men want to be mechanics, and I don't blame them. Apprentice wages are horrific, and even when qualified pay is very average. Take into account you are expected to buy all your own tools, and it's easy to see why hiring is so difficult.
We NEED more Real Estate Agents ;)
I rather pick my own fruit than to have to someone pick my fruit for me but compete with me to buy a home.
Hospitality. That includes chefs & managers. Especially in country or rural areas. It’s absolutely dire.
100% agreed. I'm a Chef and it's dire out there. It's a damn miracle to get someone actually qualified to apply for a job and then there's a 50/50 chance of them actually showing up for the interview.
It's that it pays too poorly. There is enough Chefs are out there - they just jump ship. For the amount of physical and mental strain required for the job, you would expect much better wages. But wages continue to be suppressed by bringing in workers from other countries - most of whom arrive here to study for the work. Chefs need better pay, which from a supply and demand position means importing fewer workers.
Uber and DoorDash drivers. Oh wait…
As someone in the healthcare, I've noticed that there's a high demand for those professionals, like registered nurses, midwives, doctors, aged and disabled care workers, and social workers. It seems this is because of various reasons such as our aging population, the rise in chronic illnesses, and a heightened need for healthcare services.
Interesting comments here. I am so cynical now that although I'm sure there are 'shortages' in a few sectors, particularly the care economy, I am automatically suspicious of vested interests. After all these years of the skill shortage narrative and high migration rates to apparently deal with it, all I see is hordes of Uber drivers (I've never had one that is not an obvious migrant) and every house that has been sold on my street over the years being bought by recent migrants. Yet the narrative perpetuates. Our living standards that matter are creeping backwards yet you can now get a packet of Pringles delivered at midnight by some poor Uber driver. What is a 'skill shortage' in that world? Anecdotal of course, but seems consistent with experiences of others.
Truck drivers.
I think customer service for call centres/general support for Australian based companies is something we lack. I think for “low” level work it pays really well and gives you great skills to branch out into IT which we also lack.
What IT do we actually lack ? It’s a massive field.
Australia shouldn't be able to outsource anything oversea full stop.
IT specialists I think not. Australia is full of them, all from overseas as well.
The shortage of medical doctors is artificial. Unnecessary requirements for medical certificates (just combine all leave types to personal leave). I bet it's cheaper (medicare) for everyone to get a default quarterly bloods and scans and a registered nurse would check it if it needs further diagnosis/escalation. Make most if not all drugs legal to buy without a presecription. It's not like it protects people getting addicted to drugs. There's enough meth and whatnot available to buy illegally. It's so ineffecient for no reason. Most of the lab work can be automated, reading scans can be automated.
Nurses willing to work in remote areas
Supermarket clerks. *^(\*Unexpected item in bagging area. Please wait for attendant.\*)*
Nurses nurses nurses nurses
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Electrical tradespeople. Aus is aiming for net zero and every single technology requires skilled electrical workers to install and/or maintain those technologies (eg solar, wind, battery storage, substations, transmission, electric vehicles, electrified rail). Get an electrical trade and it’s guaranteed work for the next 30+ years till retirement!
Is 40 too old to start an electrical apprenticeship? As in, would any electrician realistically take on a 40-year-old apprentice? I'd like to be involved in the renewables roll out
Nurses, particularly specialists and in regional areas
Any jobs to support the energy transition, e.g. electricians, electrical engineers, construction workers, renewable energy developers, financiers, etc. etc.
Boilermaker/welders - doesn't seem like anyone wants to do it anymore. Big money being thrown around to get people I'm the door.
Landscapers
Hairdressers
See page 24 for heal profession vacancy data from the interim report 'Independent review of health practitioner regulatory settings' commissioned by National Cabinet last year. Since 2019 occupational therapy positions were harder to fill than physio, nurses and GPs. Report: https://www.regulatoryreform.gov.au/sites/default/files/FINAL%20Independent%20Review%20of%20Overseas%20Health%20Practitioner%20Regulatory%20Settings%20-%20Interim%20Report\_1.pdf
https://www.nationalskillscommission.gov.au/topics/skills-priority-list This will tell you.
These are too broad. "Engineers" doesn't mean anything - there's about 700 different types of engineer. Same with IT specialists. You can't grab an open cut coal mine engineer and get them to design a tram braking system.
For those who say "but we have enough [insert job] here in Australia!", what we need is skills not certificates. It takes years to produce competent workers.
Tradespeople of any sort but more so in the mechanical side,fitters,boilermaker/ welders car / truck mechanics, A grade electricians. The short fall in all trades is huge,I'm gen x and where out out of the force in 5 to 10 years and the the numbers coming in are a faction of what is needed the amount of business looking of these trade I've not seen since I started working in the mid eighties. It's a world wide shortage and immigration will not fix the shortage,we live in interesting times,im a mechanical fitter so I'm seeing these problems first hand
Unionized workers
Short on Environmental Health Officers (also called Public Health Inspectors or Health Inspectors) in other countries.