01 Feb It’s a HSE Job Candidate Market – Q4 2021 Health & Safety Employment Review

If you regularly follow us via our LinkedIn, you’ll know that we track and analyse the health and safety job market on a monthly basis.  As part of this process, we use data from Australia’s most popular job-boards, SEEK and LinkedIn.  

This review is based on the final quarter of 2021 (1 Sep – 31 Dec).

For the purposes of this analysis, we used data from more than 2,000 health and safety roles advertised nationally. 

What did we find? 

The data tells us a story and is consistent with what we are experiencing as health and safety specialist recruiters.

1. The majority of roles advertised were allocated to Advisor/Snr Advisor (52%) with Mid-Level Management roles in second-place (18%).
2. The majority of health and safety roles were available in NSW (30%) with VIC in second place (22%) and WA in third place (19%).
3. The majority of all roles advertised were permanent (86%) with contract roles in second place (10%).
4. 53% of employers advertising roles were seeking candidates with less than 5 years of health and safety experience.
5. As for specialist roles, the most popular roles go to Injury Management/RTW (70%).  Systems came in as the second speciality area (17%) (this data has the highest fluctuation month to month).
6. Executive positions were slow to come to market, however these will always make up the smallest % of roles advertised (as there are fewer positions and many are not advertised).
7. The dominant industry advertising was construction – followed by professional services, government, manufacturing and mining and manufacturing.

General Australian Employment Data

According to ANZ Job Ads, there was a 6% decrease in job ads nationwide in December,

which is consistent with what we found (drop of 4% from November to December).

The Australian Bureau of Statistics released their review of December 2021 and based on this ABS Data the unemployment rate decreased to 4% with an employment to population ratio increase to 63% 

It’s a candidate’s market

With the  ANZ Job Ads data indicating that roles being advertised in Australia are running 4.2% above the pre-Delta-lockdown peak in June 2021 and 36.8% above the pre-COVID level, many employers are finding that there is a candidate shortage across most occupations.  

SEEK tells a similar story in their 2021 SEEK employment report where they recapped the entire 2021 year. 

1. Job ads reached record levels in March, and then again in April, May, October and November.
2. The three industries with the most year on year (y/y) growth were Hospitality & Tourism (76%), Healthcare & Medical (40%) and Trades and Services (35%).
3. Applications per job ad declined all year, reaching the lowest point on record in November.

Our Number One Hiring Tip

With Australia’s population growth at the lowest level in 100 years, largely due to border closures impacting international skilled arrivals, the ‘war for talent’ is likely to continue across many occupations.  

Health and Safety is not immune from the effects of the pandemic – with so much movement over the past two-years, particularly at the advisor level, there are fewer candidates seeking new roles so we recommend employers change antiquated recruitment processes to compete. 

From our experience, the interview and employment offer process is often the one area that can let employer’s down.  Our number one hiring tip is to ensure that this process moves quickly:

• Feedback is provided to candidates within 48 hours of interview (so they know you are interested in them……or not)
• The second interviews take place within 5 business days of first interview (so their enthusiasm doesn’t wane, and you beat the other company interviewing them)
• A verbal offer is extended 3 business days post second interview….and by the hiring manager (so they already start to build the trust and loyalty with their new manager, not the HR or Recruitment Manager)
• The employment contract is issued within 24 hours of verbal offer being extended 

Who doesn’t want to work for a company that impresses them with their swift decision making and high interest in them?  

Looking for your HSE unicorn or your next role? Get in touch.

For more HSE recruitment tips, read:

• Is the HSE great resignation a myth of fact?
• Follow HOK Talent Solutions on LinkedIn