What are the employment prospects in Australia?
In the 20th century it could be argued that Australia’s economic success was based on its abundant agricultural and later mineral and fuels resources. However, while these sectors remain important, Australia has increasingly become a knowledge-based economy. Many factors have contributed to this development: the pace of technological and social change; the influx of highly-educated and trained migrants; advances in transport making travel cheaper and faster; the influence of the internet which has accelerated the exchange of ideas; and broader access to higher standards of education.
If you want a good job in Australia, you must usually be well qualified and speak fluent English (if you’re an independent migrant, you won’t be accepted without these skills). Unemployment is high among non-English-speaking adult migrants, particularly those from the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East and North Africa, who came to Australia under the Family Reunion Program (although two-thirds have professional qualifications), many of whom believe that they were better off before.
Most states publish data on current job prospects, indicating occupations with a shortage of experienced workers. However, it’s important to obtain the latest information concerning jobs (official information sometimes lags behind the situation ‘on the ground’); if possible, try to secure a position before your arrival. It’s advantageous to make a fact-finding visit to Australia to check your job prospects first hand, although this may not be feasible (a research trip can also help you to judge more accurately whether you’re likely to enjoy the Australian way of life). This may also help you find a prospective employer willing to sponsor you, which makes the task of obtaining a visa much easier. If you plan to arrive in Australia without a job, you should have a detailed plan for finding employment on arrival and try to make some contacts in advance.
You shouldn’t plan on obtaining immediate employment in Australia unless you have a firm job offer or special qualifications and experience for which there’s a strong local demand, for example in computers or medicine.
The Australian job market changed dramatically in the ’90s, during which most new jobs shifted from construction, finance and manufacturing to the communications, property and service industries (e.g. retailing and computing). In fact, Australia has undergone an economic revolution, during which many sacred cows have gone (or are going) to the wall, including the power of the unions, protectionism, state ownership and the welfare state.
There has been huge job growth in the white-collar services sector in recent years, particularly in property and business support services, which now employ some 80 per cent of the sector’s workforce and are responsible for 25 per cent of export earnings. Agriculture (including fishing, forestry, horses, horticulture and the service industries to agriculture and agribusiness) has also created some 20,000 jobs in the last decade. Retailing is the largest source of jobs in Australia, with some 1.3mn workers; property and business services are the second-largest, and manufacturing the third, although its share of national employment has halved to below 15 per cent since the mid-’60s. In recent years, most new jobs have been created in Queensland and Western Australia due to the booming mining and construction sectors in these states.
Australian manufacturers and the labour market were relatively slow to embrace new technology and to adjust to the rapidly changing world economy, although there’s now an intensive government drive to rectify this. Many companies used to depend on (declining) assistance through export incentives, production bounties and import tariffs rather than aiming to eradicate restrictive working practices, improving productivity and reducing costs. Australian productivity is much lower than that of the US and many other developed countries. Like most developed countries, Australia has found it increasingly difficult to compete with cheap imports from countries (e.g. in Asia) where labour costs are much lower.
The information technology age has spawned a new class of casual, low paid, low skilled, part-time workers, and one of the trade unions’ main fears is that new technology will create an ‘underclass’ and dump thousands of people on the job scrap heap. Although there was major job-shedding by banks and utility companies in the mid-’90s, in recent years economic growth sparked by the 2000 Olympics have led to greater employment. Indeed, although new technology may be putting people out of work in some industries, it’s credited with creating jobs overall. Australia’s job market, like that of most developed countries, was transformed in the ’90s and it’s vital for workers in the 21st century to keep their skills up to date in order to stay ahead of the pack.
There are currently shortages of skilled workers in many sectors, including medicine: it’s estimated, for example, that there will be thousands of nursing vacancies in the next decade.
Although it isn’t as easy to find work as it was a few years previously, there’s a steady demand for skilled workers in most regions and a shortage in some areas, which has been exacerbated by a sharp reduction in apprenticeships and training in recent years. If you have a choice, compare the job or business opportunities in all states and territories before deciding where to live, as job prospects vary considerably from city to city and state to state (as does the culture, lifestyle and, especially, the weather).
Some states (notably South Australia) have a shortage of skilled workers and sometimes offer incentives to migrants such as job-matching schemes, low-interest loans and subsidised accommodation. It’s also easier to qualify for immigration if you’re willing to settle outside the major cites in a designated ‘low-growth’ area (in recent years, job prospects have improved faster in regional centres than in state capitals).
For more information see Living and Working in Australia by David Hampshire
