News Article

Skilled labour market is weakening: Clarius Group index

7/02/2012 -

Employment services firm Clarius Group has dug into labour market data to find more evidence that the labour market is weakening.

- Garry Shilson-Josling

The report issued late on Monday focused on the balance between supply and demand in the market for skilled labour.

And it found a big imbalance.

"There was an oversupply of 160,500 skilled people across four major occupation categories for the final quarter of 2011," according to the report, which was compiled with the help of KPMG Econtech.

At the heart of the report is an index based on available data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations.

It compares demand for skilled labour - employment plus skilled job vacancies - with supply - employment plus unemployed people nominating a particular former skilled occupation.

When supply and demand are balanced, the index is set at 100.

When the index falls from above 100 to below 100, it means the skilled labour market has moved from a shortage of skilled labour to an oversupply.

And this is just what the labour market did in the final quarter of 2011, when the index dropped to 101.2 to 98.7, its lowest level since the March quarter of 2010.

Within the total, the report breaks the labour market into 20 occupations in four major groups.

Of the four major groups, there was an oversupply of 18,400 managers, 32,300 professionals, 58,000 trades and technical workers and 51,800 clerical and administrative workers.

The figures are consistent with ABS data showing the trend in employment bent downwards as 2011 drew to a close.

The stagnating labour market left net growth in employment in 2011 at zero and unemployment at 629,000 - 37,600 higher than at the end of 2010 despite a big fall in the rate of labour force participation.

The Clarius report was released as the board of the Reserve Bank of Australia prepared to hold its monthly monetary policy meeting, the first in 2012 after the normal January recess, with the futures market pricing in a three-in-four chance of an interest rate cut.

Source: AAP NewsWire

Browse the IndustrySearch directory: Business Finance & Insurance

Have your say...

Steve Anderson | 7/02/2012 10:56:40 AM

Why then are we still bringing in thousands of 457 visa workers?????

GREG | 29/02/2012 2:59:01 PM

Steve the employment figures dont reflect the whole real picture. What about all the small business out there in the field of Achitecture,building,engineering,trades,etc, that dont have any projects or work. Are they deemed to be unemployed people? Raising the unemployment percentage to maybe double to 11% or more. ??

We welcome thoughtful comments from readers