In the last month, ADM has partnered with recruitment agency, Quality People to survey our readers and gain an insight into the current state of the defence industry job market.
The pandemic has appeared to create much uncertainty for employers and employees alike. The survey aimed to determine its impact on the job market (if any), to highlight which skills are in short supply, to show how long it is currently taking for companies to fill positions and where those positions are based and advertised.
The results show that the impact of Covid-19 on the defence hiring market has been surprisingly negligible. Only six per cent of respondents indicated that the pandemic had some impact on their hiring decisions. Over three quarters of respondents said they are actively looking for new staff, of which 40 per cent were looking for new staff with university or trade qualifications.
The relatively low impact of the pandemic on defence industry may be attributed to its unique single source consumer model and the steadiness of federal funding, and possibly to federal income support for businesses.
The skills that are in short supply will come as no surprise. 29 per cent of all respondents indicated that engineering positions are the hardest to fill, followed by project management on 20 per cent and other trades on 13 per cent. These results are also the top three answers for current job vacancies: engineering at 28 per cent, project management at 15 per cent and other trades at 12 per cent.
The demand for engineers may also have had some impact on the length of time it is taking to fill positions: 60 per cent of vacancies had been empty for over a month, and 20 per cent for over six months.
The majority of available positions are in capital cities (64 per cent) and a further 20 per cent in multiple locations, with only 16 per cent located in regional or rural Australia.
The majority of available positions are advertised through online services such as Seek or LinkedIn at 40 per cent, with a further 17 per cent through recruitment agencies and 10 per cent internal recruitment.
The results show that defence industry remains a job seekers’ market: there is still an overwhelming demand for STEM-qualified workers, and that demand has been little affected by the current economic climate.
It may be interesting to follow up on the results in a few years to gauge the impact of the government’s latest tertiary education reforms, which emphasise STEM skills as those it believes to be ‘job-ready’. This glance at the defence industry job market would suggest the same.
Note: Quality People is a niche recruitment agency that sources hard-to-get specialist professionals in Engineering, ICT, Finance, Quality Assurance and Testing, Engineering, Health and Safety & Construction across a number of sectors, including Defence.
Please contact David Silverman, Quality People's National Business Manager, for more:
P: 0433 829 471
E: david@qualitypeople.com.au
W: www.qualitypeople.com.au