New research has found Australian employers are looking beyond Aussie shores to address skills shortages, with vacancies being filled by talent from India, the UK and South Africa.
The 2011 Borderless Workforce research by ManpowerGroup Australia shows that 35 percent of employers are looking overseas when recruiting new employees.
Research also found foreign talent is most important in the ‘engineers’ and ‘skilled manual trade’ job categories, with most job vacancies being filled by UK, India and South African talent.
According to ManpowerGroup ANZ managing director Lincoln Crawley, the migration of talent across and within national borders is growing rapidly in size.
“Employers need to take a sophisticated approach to managing their talent supply and demand, in order to win the escalating war for talent.”
Crawley said that Australia needs to embrace the concept of a ‘borderless workforce’ and recognise the need of overseas workers to fill skill shortages.
“For many Australian companies, the concept of a ‘borderless workforce’ is difficult to grasp. The hard fact is, Australia doesn’t have enough of the right skills to sustain current projects.”
Research also showed that some regions in Australia have embraced a global workforce more than others, with Western Australia leading the way with 47 percent of employers using foreign talent.
“Western Australia has been forced to think more strategically about labour supply – in many ways attracting workers from overseas is easier than enticing them across from the eastern states.”
