Trends in the Australian Labor Market
The purpose of this study is to assess career opportunities with the present labor market in Australia with target industry as accounting industry. The accounting service sector has revealed modest growth over the last five years owing to positive business confidence and rising demand for sector- specific advisory services. As per the general market research, the accounting entities in Australia has been valued at around $20 billion in the last year in form of revenue. Auditing service have been the dependable source of revenue for the firms operating in this industry over the last five years. The revenue generated from high- valued advisory services has enhanced as clients have searched to accounting entities for advice on decreasing costs. Over the last five years, the firms under this sector have rapidly outsourced lower accounting activities level to international entities. The accounting sector in Australia posted an average yearly growth of around 2.6% between the year 2012 and 2017. The employment figures reached at around 115,000 in the past year. The study also analyzes on how the present trends in Australian labor market affects career opportunities in this industry. The reasons behind this occupation is viable options for career path has been discussed in this study.
The dynamics of labor market for accountants has been understood in context to changes which are occurring in Australian labor market. Change in technology and globalization leading to dynamic structural change where flexible business skills and accountant skulls are basic requirements. This industry has integrated new technologies and become risingly involved in global economy. The accounting industry has accounted for around 70% of all jobs (Alizadeh 2013).
In the short run, there have been shortages of accountants in Australia particularly for their skills and experience. The accountant shortages in this sector has been dealt with through employer nominated temporary entry visas. The total job openings for the accountants has been around 11000 per annum in medium term of 10 years (Carnegie 2014). There has been significant demand for individuals with accounting skills and qualifications working in financial and management related services. Focusing on domestic supply, the total domestic completion of the accounting degrees are near around 2500 per annum and is not increasing. The domestic completion of the accounting majors in all degrees has averaged to about 4700 per annum. Besides this, immigrants with the accounting skills and knowledge have been running at around 8000 per annum that involves those who do not seek work as accountants. Most of these with accounting qualifications has found employment rapidly in jobs commensurate with their knowledge and skills. According to 2011 census report, a total of 196,567 individuals have been employed as accountants. Of those accountants employed in job, it has been evident that females have been less represented in senior occupations as compared to men. Furthermore, migration has been main characteristics of accountant’s labor market with around 42% of accounting profession overseas as compared to 27% of total population in this country.
The Census data signifies that 196,567 individuals were employed as accountants in the year 2011. There was 11% increase over the period to 2015 as shown by labor force survey. The data provided by the labor force survey reflects that there has been high growth in the employment during pre- GFC boom but post- GFC the employment level declined at high rate. The employment growth has occurred when total number of accounting students declined. In the year 2014 and 2015, there has been unprecedented growth in total employment of this industry. This occurred owing to measurement error but it might be reflection of lagged post- GFC rise in employment as well as predictions of improving conditions.
Additional Industries for New Degree Holders
The new accounting graduates are major source of entrants into accounting. In Australia, even though graduates with degrees have accounting skills, they always do not intend in pursuing career in accounting and chooses degree offering several options. International students are more interested in pursuing this accounting career than domestic students in this nation. According to data published by ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics), the total number of domestic accounting students declined by near about 35% since the year 2002. On the other hand, the international students increased dramatically during this period. The labor market trends reflects substitution between peoples mobility and occupations between jobs matching with qualifications. However, this creates competition in labor market (Hollifield, Martin and Orrenius 2014).
This has been one of the main characteristics of Australian labor market as it seeks in meeting short term requirements and increase economic growth through enhancing quality as well as quantity of human resources. Over the past five years, the total number of accountants migrating to this nation increased at stable rate owing to improvement in immigration policy (Docquier, Ozden and Peri 2013). Qualified accountants who have migrated to Australia over the years mainly matched to jobs. Few evidences reflect that most of the migrants with the accounting qualifications search employment in skilled occupations. In present years, skilled migrants policy in Australia influenced international students choices. Highly skilled accountants are generally in demand and their movements might be predicted to employment opportunities across the globe (Elsby, Hobijn and ?ahin 2015).
Four kinds of labor related accountant shortages have been occurring in this country namely- skill shortages, labor shortages skill gaps and recruitment difficulties. Due to this, the enterprises in this sector are applying other mechanisms for coping up with shortage of skills. Larger entities are making investment in training for getting inexperienced accounting graduates up to scratch. Several facts also reflects that the new accounting graduates have been facing numerous difficulties in getting job in this industry (Poschke 2013). While oversupply manifest itself in the employment of recent graduates, it gives distorted view of demand and supply in the labor market. However, demand and supply of accounting laborers creates imbalance in this accounting labor market. This reflects that there has been unemployment trends in Australian labor market over the last few years.
With new this accounting degree qualification, it could be viable for me to work in both manufacturing and telecommunication industries. By working as an accountant in both of these industries, it would help me to explore my career opportunities. The manufacturing sector in Australia has relatively low concentration of workers with graduate degrees. Therefore, sheer size of this industry reflects that it is still important employer of the graduates from various disciplines specially, accounting, information technology and industrial design. In the present years, the manufacturing sector in Australia has shifted into export as well as production of transformed manufactures mainly because of rising competition from foreign producers in this industry. The shift towards production of complex goods and business operations requires skilled laborers. However, in every facets of manufacturing procedure, skilled accountants are required to enhance the growth of this sector (Graduate Careers Australia. 2018). The salary of graduates in this sector ranges from $35,000 to $63,300 and also requires computer- design skills for working in this sector. For this reason, this industry and occupation is viable option for my career path.
Job Seeking Strategies
The telecommunication sector provides huge range of services used by the Australians several times a day. The widespread increase in high speed digital transmission processes as well as resilience on the mobile telecommunications services have outcome in huge change in sector. The telecommunication sector in Australia has been deregulated in present years (Graduate Careers Australia. 2018). The professional group those are in demand in this sector are computer system engineers, project managers, marketing professionals and accountants. This sector provides numerous employment opportunities for skilled and technological staffs. Moreover, this industry is viable as the employment prospects are better as compared to other industries and expansion of already present networks is also good. Besides this, the requirement for the continued research as well as development in this sector have resulted in enhanced opportunities for accountants and engineers. In addition to this, the salary of graduates ranges from $39000 to $55000 for relevant occupations (Hawthorne 2016). Therefore, this industry are viable option for my career path based on the research on labor market.
The three creative job seeking strategies used by the Australians in this industry are given below-
- Recruitment agencies- These agencies administer vacancies for enterprise as well as create profiles of the potential candidates. They are searching for suitable workers for their clients in order to fill vacancies or contract positions. There are several recruitment agencies in Australia’s accounting industry such as- Richard Lloyd, Hays, Benneaux, Robert Half. Richard Lloyd is one of the biggest recruitment agencies in Sydney. This recruitment agency’s mission is to connect accounting talent in this region with several job opportunities. They help the job seekers to find out appropriate accounting jobs. Thy also takes time to know about their career aspirations as well as plans for finding out the role that suits their requirement, offering advice and guide through recruitment procedure. Moreover, it also leverages best talent network combined with extensive recruitment experience and also assures that every individual gets connected to proper recruiter according to their requirements. Robet Half is another leading recruitment agency in Australia that connects skilled individuals with the employers in permanent positions for different fields involving technology, accounting services. It specializes in offering businesses with skilled finance and accounting professionals on temporary basis. Benneaux is another recruitment consultancy that specializes in accounting within public and professional practice. Randstad is another recruitment agencies that work in partnerships with public practice as well as government enterprise that focuses on recruitment of accountants at every levels. However, the employers in this accounting sector uses this recruitment method for attracting accountants in its business.
- Most of the enterprises in this sector are advertising jobs specially on internet or paper for reaching the audience of job seekers. Recent evidences reflect that the firms operating in this sector are advertising 18% of the vacancies in newspapers also in order to attract skilled accountants in their business. One of the websites namely jobactive.gov.au offers huge range of features that includes permitting an individual to actively search for the candidates according to their requirements.
- Government recruitment service such as jobactive is the provider that offers benefit to sourcing staffs and facilitates the seekers to understand the business. They also take care of the candidates screening as well as shortlisting procedure. They also suggests wages, training programs which are available for helping to source appropriate candidate to the firms operating in this sector.
Intercultural challenges adversely impacts the accounting enterprises in Australia. Multiculturalism in Australia influences all the industries including this accounting industry. As the immigrants remain high over the past few years due to immigration policy, the varied culture of these migrants affects the Australians (Digitalcommons.liberty.edu.2018). The business operating in this industry are also affected owing to its different culture employees in their business. This is because the employers of these industries in Australia faces difficulties in communicating with the people of varied cultures. This in turn hampers the recruitment process and business operations in this industry. Also, the migrants face difficulties in finding jobs in this sector.
The recommendations are provided to this industry so that the laborers do not face difficulty in finding jobs-
- The accounting industry must expand their service lines in order to attract skilled accountants in the job
- This industry must also change its accountants fee structure so that it leads to increase in demand of accountants in this industry.
- This sector must explore new methods for reaching out skilled and knowledgeable accountants in the job.
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that the accounting industry in Australia have been facing difficulties in shortage of skilled accountants in the business. The firms operating in this industry are finding new recruitments methods for attracting skilled candidates in its business. In addition to this, the migrants in this country are also facing difficulty in searching for job in this nation. However, it is vital for this industry to bring about reforms so that accountants gets attracted to this sector.
References
Alizadeh, T., 2013, November. Towards the socio-economic patterns of the national broadband network rollout in Australia. In State of Australian Cities Conference, Sydney (Vol. 26, p. 29).
Carnegie, G., 2014. Pastoral accounting in colonial Australia: a case study of unregulated accounting. Routledge.
Digitalcommons.liberty.edu. 2018. [online] Available at: https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1396&context=honors [Accessed 2 Oct. 2018].
Docquier, F., Ozden, Ç., and Peri, G. 2013. The labour market effects of immigration and emigration in OECD countries. The Economic Journal, 124(579), 1106-1145.
Elsby, M.W., Hobijn, B. and ?ahin, A., 2015. On the importance of the participation margin for labor market fluctuations. Journal of Monetary Economics, 72, pp.64-82.
Graduate Careers Australia. 2018. Manufacturing – Graduate Careers Australia. [online] Available at: https://www.graduatecareers.com.au/careerplanningandresources/exploringyourcareeroptions/careerprofiles/manufacturing/ [Accessed 2 Oct. 2018].
Graduate Careers Australia. 2018. Telecommunications – Graduate Careers Australia. [online] Available at: https://www.graduatecareers.com.au/careerplanningandresources/exploringyourcareeroptions/careerprofiles/telecommunications/ [Accessed 2 Oct. 2018].
Hawthorne, L., 2016. Labour market outcomes for migrant professionals: Canada and Australia compared.
Hollifield, J., Martin, P.L. and Orrenius, P. eds., 2014. Controlling immigration: A global perspective. Stanford University Press.
Poschke, M., 2013. Who becomes an entrepreneur? Labor market prospects and occupational choice. Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, 37(3), pp.693-710.
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