The report from the Department of Immigration and Citizenship outlined that 90% of skilled temporary migrant workers are in the top rungs of companies, earning an average salary of $100 000, an increase of $10 000 from the same time last year.

Leading with the highest wages were workers in the mining industry.

Overseas mining industry professionals in Australia employed on 457 Visas earned an average of $169 000 with those in the financial industry second at an average $127 000.

While earning the highest wage, overseas skilled migrant workers in the mining industry accounted for only 6.5% of workers sponsored.

Medical and IT professionals were the majority of workers employed on 457 visas.

However, despite this rise in the average wage, overall visa grants dropped by close to half from January 2009 to 2010.

Visas granted for the mining industry also saw a steep drop from year to year, seeing a 58.6% fall in numbers, recording 1320 workers from 2009 to 2010 as compared to 3210 for the previous period.

The mining industry accounted for the majority of applications in Western, with 26% of applicants within the State working in the resources sector in 2009 to 2010.

Despite this strong representation, the number of applications within the State dropped close to 60% when compared to 2008 to 2009.

The majority of workers on 457 visas are employed in New South Wales and Victoria, with more than a quarter of applications coming from the UK followed by around 16% from India.

Many companies use work recruitment agencies to find personnel to fill various positions. Often agencies are called in to help fill positions faster and more adequately. If you want access to hundreds of jobs without having to visit numerous employers then working with an employment agency is the way to go.

What are the advantages of working with employment agencies?

It saves you time – Looking for employment is a full-time job. Employment agencies are able to provide you instant access to jobs within mere minutes as opposed to the time it would take for you to individually apply for each position. You also have the added benefit of continuing to work even while searching for a new job.

You receive career management tips -Recruiters are specially trained to offer career advice and training to job seekers. They can offer you resume tips, interview preparation questions, and other career etiquette that can help you become better equipped at finding the best job for you.

You can work temp jobs until you find what you are looking for -Even if you aren’t able to immediately find the permanent job employment opportunity that is right for you, if you work with a staffing agency you can still do temporary work in the same or other fields that you may be qualified for, allowing you to remain employed and possibly gain skills that you can use in a future permanent position.

On the job-training -If you are hired in a temporary capacity then you have the opportunity to learn on- the -job. Many companies are willing to train employees on machinery and software even if they are not full-time employees, so it’s important to remember no matter what position you are hired for you can always learn from it and gain new skills.

Don’t limit your job search; employment opportunities are available in major industries throughout the Sunshine Coast.

Hudson’s stock on the NASDAQ has fallen 62.9% over the past year, down to $US5.38 per share this morning ($A8.10).

When Randstad and Vedior began discussions about a possible takeover in November 2007, they had market caps of €3.7 billion and €2.7 billion respectively.

Today, the merged entity has a share price of €14.19 ($A29) on the Euronext exchange, and a market cap of about €2.4 billion ($A4.9b) – 62.5% lower than its combined value late last year.

Manpower, on the New York Stock Exchange, lost 55.3% of its value over the past 12 months, down to $US31.19 ($A47.16) today.

Adecco, listed with the Swiss Exchange, lost 47.9% in value over the year, to a share price of 39.48 Swiss francs today ($A52.42).

Hays’ share price on the London Stock Exchange has dropped 47.7% year-on-year to £71.50 ($A184.33) today.

Michael Page, also on the London Stock Exchange, is currently at £2.02 ($A5.19), having lost 54.4% of its share value during the year.

Meanwhile, the major local recruitment stocks have borne even steeper falls in their market caps.

Chandler Macleod has lost more than three quarters of its value – down 76.5% on a year ago, to 20 cents a share this morning.

Talent2 has not fared much better, its stock falling 72.4% year-on-year to 80 cents today.

Clarius has seen its share price drop 70.5% over the past 12 months to 96 cents today.

SKILLED’s share price has fallen 60.2% in the same period, to $2.15 today.

“This article was originally published in Shortlist, 13 October 2008. Shortlist’s editorial team includes some of the most experienced human resources journalists in Australia. Shortlist has been writing about the recruiting industry for years and Shortlist is the number one source of information for both corporate recruiters and recruitment companies. Shortlist is published by Specialist News Pty Ltd. Specialist News Pty Ltd is an Australian-owned company that provides high-quality, cost-effective business information using modern technology. And, importantly, Shortlist is completely independent from recruitment companies or industry associations, major media groups, unions, employer associations and government.”

Organisations usually put a raft of strategies in place to deal with the business symptoms of such people-related problems, and sometimes these wonderfully flawed strategies are created by the people who created the problems in the first place. Such strategies often leave HR out of the equation, and fail to address the cause of the problem – the wrong people in the wrong jobs.The more I talk to companies about business and their people-related challenges, the more it amazes me that they don’t place more emphasis on getting the recruitment process right. If you get the right person in the right job at the right time, bottom-line and many other business benefits are immediate, tangible and significant. If you get the wrong person in the wrong job, then productivity, culture and retention rates can all take a hit in a big way. As already mentioned, these problems grow exponentially when a company puts the wrong person into a management or executive position.

So why do so many organisations place so little emphasis on getting the recruitment process right? Many companies and their executives often fail to deliver the necessary support and funding to make it happen. And sometimes it’s the recruiters themselves (whether they be in-house or external) who are in the wrong jobs and should be doing something else.

It’s well recognised that good managers and executives need to be intelligent, emotionally healthy, well-grounded and rounded individuals. They need a good depth of understanding and innate ability to read people and know what makes them tick. The same can easily be said of recruiters if they’re to hire the right people for the right jobs. However, it’s a rare combination to have both executives/managers and recruiters with these qualities. But when these two stars align, an organisation’s talent pipeline can burst at the seams, producing business benefits that will by far eclipse the results produced by any other kind of strategy.

The more I talk to companies about business and their people-related challenges, the more it amazes me that they don’t place more emphasis on getting the recruitment process right. If you get the right person in the right job at the right time, bottom-line and many other business benefits are immediate, tangible and significant. If you get the wrong person in the wrong job, then productivity, culture and retention rates can all take a hit in a big way. As already mentioned, these problems grow exponentially when a company puts the wrong person into a management or executive position.

“This article first appeared in Human Resources magazine.

Staffing might be one of the areas you plan to focus on this year. After all, good staff are an organisation’s greatest asset. You might have recently lost a key member of staff, either initiated by them or prompted by you and it’s certainly not unusual at this time of the year when people are freshly back from their Christmas break.

With December’s unemployment levels at 4.3% and no easing of the skill shortages in sight, finding key staff will be one of the most critical aspects to maintain your firm’s competitive position in the market place in 2008.

Most people call their accountant for financial advice or solicitor when faced with a legal problem – when it comes to the recruitment and retention of personnel, you should call “the coast’s first recruiter ™” for a confidential chat.

With the employment market continuing to tighten, employers are working harder than ever to attract, engage and retain the talent they have, according to Simon Moylan, national practice leader of assessment & development for Hudson, which conducted the research.

“The visible cost of turnover, including recruitment, hiring, orientation and training sits somewhere between 50 per cent and 150 per cent of an individual’s salary,” he said.

“However, the additional unknown costs such as loss of expertise, reduced productivity, lower morale, the cost of the vacant position and the training of the new hire, means the true cost of turnover may be up to three times this amount.”

The survey of 7,185 employers nationally found that more than 96 per cent of organisations have formal staff engagement programs in place with the most widely-used initiatives within Australian businesses being flexible work options (67 per cent) and financial incentives (62 per cent).

These are followed by leadership development and succession planning (each 48 per cent), with mentor programs (36 per cent), formal coaching (35 per cent) and high potential programs (27 per cent).

While low retention can pose a significant cost to an employer, Moylan said a moderate level of turnover is healthy for any business. “The challenge for employers is to balance the cost of turnover with the need to inject the organisation with new talent and fresh ideas.”

While the research suggested employers appear to be getting the message that salary is no longer the key driver of job satisfaction, 11 of the 19 industries surveyed still rely on financial incentives as the leading engagement tool.

Employers within the construction/engineering/property (74 per cent), financial services (79 per cent), IT (74 per cent), manufacturing (62 per cent) and resources (82 per cent) sectors are among those using financial incentives as their key engagement tools.

Western Australia was the only state where employers rated financial incentives as the leading engagement initiative with all other states rating flexible work options as the key tool. The boom in the West Australian economy and the state’s geographic location are the main drivers behind this result, as employers use financial incentives to lure talent from the eastern states.

A successful staff engagement strategy should take a holistic approach, incorporating a range of initiatives including financial incentives, flexible work options, management support, ensuring job fit and career advancement opportunities, according to Moylan:

“A robust plan on its own however, is not the solution. Employers need to be flexible in the way they implement each of their chosen initiatives to ensure it has the greatest success, tailoring the employment relationship to the individual and their unique situation to deliver the best results.”

“The cost of losing good staff far outweighs the cost of implementing these initiatives, so ultimately it’s about offering an attractive employment proposition where employees have the option to leave but choose to stay.”

“This article first appeared in Human Resources magazine. www.humanresourcesmagazine.com.au“

The workforce comprises four discrete groups; Veterans, Baby Boomers, Generation X and Generation Y.

Veterans:

Veterans were born in 1948 or earlier. Believing in “command and control” style of work, they grew in a time when the man was the breadwinner in an era pre-dating the principle of equal pay for equal work.

Baby Boomers:

Born between 1949 and 1959 Boomers grew up in a time of hope, idealism and unparalleled prosperity. They grew up on a diet of hard work equals success. Social changes like feminism and civil rights brought promises of new opportunity. Boomers paved the way for equal work for equal pay.

Generation X:

Born between 1960 and 1976, Generation X distrusts authority and “the establishment”. Their parents had “jobs for life” but X’ers witnessed good times turn bad and hard work result in redundancy. X’ers value opportunities to develop themselves and develop marketable skills to ensure their job security.

Generation Y:

Generation Y were born after 1977. They’re the “Net Generation” growing up exclusively in the digital age. They don’t know a world without computers, let alone a world without colour TV! They view many different forms of family life as normal and more than any generation before them, they’re comfortable with peers of different ethnicity. For Generation Y, change is not about upheaval; change is a constant – change represents an increased emphasis on self, personal skills development, comfort with change, and a different view of what is a long time in terms of career.

What does it all mean?

Generational differences must shape how we attract, motivate and retain talent. Generational differences mean employees will not pursue one career path within a single organisation. It also means there’s a real need to deliver on part time, flexible, creative work arrangements at all levels of the organisation. We need to ensure we have routine honest and constructive feedback mechanisms in our organisations. We should pay for performance and nothing else – paying people “to turn up” lacks leadership integrity and neither Gen X nor Y will tolerate that. Organisations must ensure that the people charged with the leadership of human beings actually know how to lead. We need to foster a culture of continual learning and skills development. And finally, we need to listen to our employees.

This is what the war for talent is all about.

There is evidence to suggest Australia is in the grip of a worsening skills shortage. Job vacancies continue to grow against a background of less job-seekers.

The recently released SEEK August 2007 Employment Index which measures the ratio of new job ads to job applications, increased sharply in August by 4.3%. According to SEEK, the Index has recorded an annual growth rate of 13.5%, which is its highest since January 2006.

The Sunshine Coast mirrors the national trend with one of the Coast’s leading recruiters confirming skill shortages across many industries. Director of the EastCoast Human Resource Group, Christopher Whisson, said “the demand for skilled trades, specialist managers and some professionals are outstripping supply. We are struggling to find professionals such as healthcare workers, solicitors, public accountants, town planners, civil engineers, surveyors, insurance brokers, architects and educators. There are simply not enough of them to go around.”

Commenting on the future employment outlook for new graduates, Chris Whisson said “If you are planning to go to university next year, you should seriously consider a career in professional services. With skills shortages already apparent in sectors such as health, IT, construction, law, and accounting, graduates can anticipate strong demand for their skills in years to come.”

Professor Peter Sheehan of the Centre for Strategic Economic Studies said in the SEEK August 2007 Employment Index: At least in the short term, labour supply and skills shortages remain a serious challenge, especially in light of a strong Australian dollar and strong consumer confidence combined with high inflationary expectations.

“However, the recent surge in capital expenditure, ambitious business plans for investment in equipment and solid R&D business expenditure provide some hope that the economic growth will continue despite a tight labour market”, he said.

According to Chris Whisson, there may never be a better time to find a job on the Sunshine Coast. “Think about it”, he said. “People come from all over the world to holiday in this little piece of paradise. People in high demand occupations can combine a fulfilling career with a world of sun drenched beaches fringed by azure blue waters, year round swimming, surfing and sailing, hill side villages renowned for their arts and craft, top dining spots, some of the country’s best golf courses and of course, regional prosperity.”