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Candidate shortages have been an ongoing issue for our industry for the last two years, as high job growth fuelled demand, and candidates were seen as in the driver's seat.
This week national data released by JobAdder, and reported in the Financial Review, stated that the job boom is slowing and reported that we are entering a market correction where it was no longer going to be a talent led market moving forward.
As we see with residential property prices, SA often defies national trends as we don’t typically have the same intensity in our highs and lows as the eastern states, and this is true for the recruitment industry and job market.
Anna Roussos, Founder and Director of leading recruitment agency for the construction, architecture, engineering, civil and property industries, ROUSSOS, says “The recruitment market in SA is still very strong and remains largely unchanged when it comes to our specialty industries. We haven’t seen a reduction in the number of jobs in the market, whilst the national figures report a decline of 12% in the last quarter.”
The report, backed by Australian Bureau of Statistics, also shows that applications per job are rising nationally. In SA, and for the construction and property industries in particular, ROUSSOS reports that the number of applications per role has remained unchanged from the past 2 years.
“We are still working hard to fill roles and we remain focused on maintaining our engagement with the passive candidate market as we continue to prioritise a targeted approach to fill roles, rather than relying on job ads alone to secure the right candidate for our clients” says Anna.
Average number of days to fill a role has increased across the board nationally, and this increase is even more significant for businesses that seek to source their own talent vs using a specialist recruitment agency, with the average number of days to fill a role being 45.
In SA, at ROUSSOS, we find the time taken to place a candidate in role is highly dependant on the role itself. “Administration and non-technical roles are being placed by our team within 1-2 weeks on average, whilst technical and senior roles such as Site Managers and Contract Administrators can take more time to find the right fit and require an adept approach."
We are all experiencing the increased cost of living across all states, therefore a close eye is being put on wages. SEEK data nationally shows wages are still growing, however it is the slowest month on month growth we have had since April 2022.
This trend is reflected in the SA market as we see employers are placing more defined ceilings on their salary bands that they are not willing to flex and talent in general is being more realistic on salary expectations. This is one to watch throughout the year.