The dark side of WA’s ‘amazing’ 13-year unemployment low
Having the nation’s tightest jobs market is creating a hiring headache for WA employers, with job vacancies taking months to fill despite generous salary offers and some companies electing not to bid for projects.
Australian Bureau of Statistics data released on Thursday showed the national unemployment rate had edged lower to 3.9 per cent while WA’s had dropped to 2.9 per cent — a 13-and-a-half year low CommSec chief economist Craig James described as “amazing”.
“More and more businesses are bemoaning the lack of suitably-qualified candidates to fill job vacancies,” Mr James said.
“So with the labour market tight as a drum, pushing up wages and prices, the first order of business for the new government will be to focus on measures to boost the supply of workers.”
The “quite incredible” numbers prompted the Chamber of Commerce and Industry WA to reiterate calls for moves to boost employer-sponsored skilled worker migration.
“We’ve been at pains to point out over the past couple of years now just how important access to overseas workers is, for Australia but in particular for WA,” chief economist Aaron Morey said.
During last decade’s mining construction boom, the unemployment rate didn’t fall anywhere near as low due to overseas worker migration, with more than 1000 moving to WA every week, he said.
ABS data shows 20,190 people arrived on permanent skilled visas nationally last month, compared to 84,360 in January 2020 before the health crisis was in full swing.
Very attractive salaries were luring in some, particularly at the top end of the resources sector, but with every country across the world looking for workers thanks to COVID recovery stimulus measures, it was proving difficult to fill skills gaps, Mr Morey said.
One of the big WA companies battling labour shortages is Wesfarmers, with managing director Rob Scott saying some of the tightest areas of the market included construction, technology, engineering and commercial roles, which were enjoying “quite significant wage inflation”.
“It’s not across the board at the moment, but I expect we will see more … in the year ahead,” he told a recent conference.
It’s not just big businesses struggling to attract and retain talent, with “help wanted” signs popping up in shop windows all over Perth. The West yesterday spotted signs in businesses in Victoria Park, Mount Lawley, Highgate and the CBD.
Hello House Plant has had to close early almost every day for about three weeks due to staff shortages. The other business Myles Cameron manages, Pigeonhole, is following suit.
“We’ve got probably 70 per cent of our staff out with COVID-19 currently,” Mr Cameron said.
“We’ve had trouble hiring new people.”
Gamecity Espresso Bar owner Dharmesh Patel said he’d been seeking at least four staff since the beginning of the year, running on the “very, very bare minimum” from late March to late April when employees were struck down with the virus.
“It made it very hard for us to continue the service as normal as we are able to,” he said.
Hospitality workers were seeking over $30 to $35 per hour, up from an award rate of $25 an hour, Mr Patel said.
One south-of-the river electrician said a key staffer being lured to work in the fly-in fly-out sector and the shortage of tradies in general had prompted him to effectively shut down his business.
CCIWA’s Business Confidence Survey last month revealed carpenters were among the most in-demand workers.
But CreditorWatch chief economist Anneke Thompson said the construction sector’s desperation for labour was expected to slow down as more building companies collapsed, with rising input costs and fixed-price contracts weighing heavily on profitability and solvency.
