Local Governments need to broaden their horizons and look overseas for new talent to deal with skills shortages according to the Western Australia Local Government Association’s human resources consulting body Workplace Solutions.The group is working with the national office of Local Government Managers Australia (LGMA) which has launched an international recruitment campaign to alleviate the skill shortages impacting the Local Government sector.
The campaign ‘UK has talent!’ was developed by LGMA following a visit to the United Kingdom by LGMA national Chief Executive, John Ravlic.
"Local Government in the United Kingdom is experiencing difficult times with some eight per cent of staff layoffs expected, due to Central Government expenditure cuts in a move to balance its budget," he said. "Predictions out of London are that 200,000 UK Local Government employees will lose their jobs over the next two to three years as a direct result of expenditure cuts."
A total of 31 Australian councils have signed up for the campaign filling some 42 positions so far.
With skills shortages facing all Local Governments, particularly in States with extensive mining activities such as Western Australia, Workplace Solutions Executive Manager John Phillips also recently visited employment expos in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
Touring the United Kingdom and Ireland, he found strong interest from UK and Irish based people looking to advance their career in Australia. Representatives from Canada and New Zealand were also active at the expo looking to recruit.
Even without the UK redundancies, John Phillips said some people in Ireland, with excellent qualifications and experience, have been out of work for up to two years.
He said at a UK employment expo where people had to pay 15 pounds to attend (A$25) the Local Government Workplace Solutions stand was deluged with about 200 resumes from highly qualified people – many in their late 20s and 30s.
"In Ireland, we had a similar response, with numerous people interested in moving to Australia," John Phillips said. "Many of these people could be working in Local Governments within four to six months. We came into contact with people with strong skills in the field of engineering, environmental health, planning, accountancy and building, who could walk into roles in Local Government."
While the stand focused on employment opportunities in Western Australia, they spoke to many people who were interested in working in positions across Australia.
Local Government Workplace Solutions is a division of WALGA that provides recruitment, training, human resource management and workplace relations support. It is hoping to address vocational areas that remain in perennial short supply such as engineering, town or urban planning, environmental health, public health, and accounting.
While the strong demand for work in Australia would seem to create an enormous opportunity for Local Government, there were several obstacles to councils embracing overseas employment.
John Phillips said the central obstacle was entrenched lingering.
"Many Local Governments remain focused on recruiting local people," he said. "That is a good intention but we are not facing an isolated local issue. It is a national issue with a 10 to 15 year timeframe and we need to start thinking outside the square.
"Australia has a long tradition of being a migrant country and developments such as the Snowy River Mountain scheme could not have occurred without a focused migrant intake.Overseas workers, particularly from Ireland, adapt well to working in Australia. There are no language difficulties and the Local Government systems are similar."
John Phillips said the long term solution is to attract young people to positions in Local Government.
"For many young people, Local Government is not an overly attractive proposition, and they don’t see the inherent advantages of transportable skills, the opportunity to work anywhere in Australia and the sense of contribution to communities," he said."As a sector we need to focus better on branding and presentation."
He said that Local Government needs to present itself as place with good conditions, secure employment and the ability to travel across the country and even around the world.
"Moreover, it will also require young people to begin to study in the fields where there are shortages," he said."The other vexing issue is that Local Government is competing for young people with the mining industry and major construction firms for engineering graduates."
LGMA National President and Greater Dandenong CEO John Bennie said that many Australian government authorities are finding it difficult to recruit talent with the required skills and experience.
"Increasingly our sector is making do by hiring staff with skills and experience lower than desired, just to get someone in the seat.
"Ultimately this approach will impact on our sector’s capacity to provide the much needed services to our communities. This is being experienced more so by councils exposed to significant mining activity in Western Australia and Queensland and to some extent South Australia and New South Wales."
For more information contact the LGMA National office on (03) 9682 9222 or email national@lgma.org.au.
