By Brian Briscoe
When I immigrated to Australia in 1999, most of my Irish friends thought I was making a strange decision; when I told them I was settling in Perth, their concerns were escalated. Ireland was riding on the back of a very energetic Celtic tiger (the term often given to Ireland’s economic emergence in the mid 90’s) and Australia wasn’t up to much, still carrying the hangover of the Asian crisis of 1997 and onwards.
13 years on, what a different set of circumstances we are faced with. Perth is one of the very few parts of the “First World” with unemployment less than 5% (most recent figure – 4.3%); skill shortages are chronic in several industries and while we all recognize the fact that we are in a very drastic two-speed economy, the fact remains that we in Western Australia are being held up as an example of “how to beat the global depression”.
Foreign qualified workers are arriving in their droves and from our viewpoint as a busy search business helping our clients procure international talent; we are seeing something quite different to previous years of immigration. A few observations on this nation’s and the world’s reaction to our economic position:
1. Not everyone that comes to Australia is excited by Australia!
5 years ago or longer, the major reason people came to Australia (and more so, Perth) was lifestyle related and had a strong positive, desire based motive behind it. Simply put, migrants “chose” Perth not because of how bad their current home was, but because how good Perth / WA might be. There are now a lot of people running away from the carnage left in Europe, and a lot of them view here as a haven from their issues. This comment might be stereotypical to a fault, but it is worth noting that the motivations for many to move have gone from desire to necessity. Some bad apples may arise within this demographic and the marketplace is noticing that not all arrivals are of the high-quality, hungry prototype that we traditionally saw entering our shores.
2. Have passport, won’t travel!
Interesting statistic: WA created over 40,000 new jobs last year, NSW and VIC lost almost that number, yet our solution to the skills shortage is focused on overseas talent! There remains an incredible psychological border across the middle of this country – Eastern states candidates are willing to travel North to Queensland (although this has been traditionally young people to work in the tourism sector and retirees seeking the Gold Coast lifestyle) but will not venture west of Parramatta! If Australia is to fully capitalize (nationally) on the prosperity of the resources boom, Aussies may need to reconsider this immobility issue. I cannot see it being solved quickly.
3. Could this be Australia’s solution to its aging population issue?
Sometimes, the closest authority you can find in Ireland to a demographer such as Bernard Salt is the owner of a busy pub in Dublin! During my time in Ireland over Christmas, I had a long conversation with on the “brain-drain” out of Ireland with one such publican. I quizzed him on what he noticed was happening to society since the Global Financial Crisis (although it’s just called Recession in Ireland, rather than GFC). “Brian, the biggest difference is all the good youth has left the country, I just don’t see any of them in here anymore”. There are a lot of young, qualified, hungry professionals and tradespeople entering our economy; eager to make their mark after 3-5 years of stagnation in their home country. All commentary in Australia over the last few years has centred on our own brain-drain from the corporate arena given the Baby Boomer Generation’s approach to retirement. Could this injection of youth, coupled with the highly educated Australian based Generation Y and Z counteract the exiting retirees?
4. Family Values Will Rule
Our observation of the “typical” migrant pre-2008 was a sub 30 year old, usually single professional. Now, there are hosts of families arriving. Why? In Europe, if you were in a job more than 5-7 years, it was hard to lose it. Job stability is reputedly higher in Europe than in Western Australia; if you have multiple 3-4 year tenures or less on your CV, it can start to get a little un-roadworthy, so people stay in jobs longer. GFC changed a lot of this and caused the usually stable to lose their jobs (or have their hours cut back by as much as 50%) or stare into a bleak future even if employed. Hence, WA is experiencing a huge surge of Family Migration and employers “rules of engagement” will be different to what it was when recruiting the foot loose and fancy free 25 year old with no outside responsibilities. Arriving in the new country, the settlement of the children, spouse and family unit is the key to the migrant’s happiness and sustainability in the job and will significantly improve the productivity and morale of your employee.
Keeping up with some of the trends places you in an excellent position to “outthink” your competition and get ahead in the pursuit of finding and retaining some of the top talent arriving on our shores from overseas or from over East. As an employer, focusing on settling the family instead of the individual, separating the international “wheat from the chaff” by either using or hiring expertise in overseas candidate selection and finding quality “mobile Australians” elsewhere in the country ready to move to WA will accelerate your success in translating national & international talent into results. Being the envy of the world is only worthwhile if we take advantage of the quality talent looking at our fields and viewing them as greener than their own.
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