Engineering Recruitment – Market Commentary – July 2021
Although recent surveys of consumer and business sentiment have shown dips, we’re yet to see any impact from the current lockdowns in Melbourne & Sydney. There’s still a big shortage of engineering talent in Australia and up to this point, hiring has not been impacted.
Through the year it’s progressively become much more challenging to fill our clients’ vacant positions in this talent-short market and hence if you are currently between roles, dissatisfied with your present position, considering relocating or perhaps just wishing to further develop your career pathway, please don’t hesitate to make contact with us and our team of engineering experts will be delighted to guide you through the recruitment maze. It can be very daunting to make that first move towards a new start, so if you are hesitant or uncertain as to the next step in the process, please do not stress – we are here to help you!
Should you not be currently looking but know of colleagues or friends who may be keen to pursue fresh opportunities please let them know about us and our core specialisation of engineering recruitment.
Hope you enjoy our team’s latest market commentary and we look forward to hearing from you.
Engineering & Manufacturing Operations
Aside from a slight lull in enquiries over the last couple of weeks, there still remains a strong demand for Operations and Engineering people. Mechanical Engineers, Electrical Engineers, Civil & Structural Engineers are in demand all over Australia, whilst on the more senior side we’ve been actively recruiting Operations, Engineering and Maintenance Managers.
Our closed borders and the lack of skilled migrants arriving on our shores, is having a great impact on both the quantity and quality of candidates.
The current lull in enquiries has coincided with the increase in COVID-19 numbers in both VIC & NSW, whilst COVID-19 itself has also created new employee expectations in the form of WFH flexibility – it is one of the first questions candidates ask when expressing their interest in a position.
Building & Mechanical Services
SEEK has informed us that we are in the tightest job market since their records began. In March 2021 more ads were placed on their website than ever before. In April 2021 that record was beaten. There was only a 0.6% decline in May 2021. That latter figure is 27.2% higher than in May 2019. There has been around a 5% drop recently, but these are still remarkable numbers.
Clients are willing to raise their final offers to secure talent as candidates are often counter-offered. If you are thinking about a new role and a better salary then there has been no better time. Strong words, but the figures above provide ample evidence.
We are currently looking for Controls Systems Engineers and Mechanical Reliability Engineers to work in the paper industry in an idyllic location, a Senior Project Manager to lead multi-disciplinary Engineers in SE Melbourne, security products and system professionals in Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra and finally, we have multiple roles for HVAC Technicians across Melbourne. If you are interested then head over to our website to apply.
Technology
The last quarter was very strong and we’re pleased to report that we were able to fill many permanent roles such as Data Scientist, Integration Engineers, Embedded Software Engineers, Senior Firmware Engineer, QA Manager, System Administrator, Hardware Engineers, Graduate Electrical Engineer and Project Manager.
As we start the new quarter, we face many new challenges. These obstacles include clients seeing the cost of hiring skilled software developers, security specialists and data experts going up by approximately 30 per cent in the past 12 months, which has led to some clients providing sign on bonuses so as to secure skilled staff. The biggest test at the moment is the skills shortage in technology, being exacerbated by the closed borders.
