Employers face changing labour market

THE NEW ZEALAND workforce is changing, but what effect will this have on local employers and job hunters?

A new report released by the Equal Employment Opportunities Trust identifies key trends:

- Growth in the number of people entering the workforce is slowing and the labour pool is ageing as fewer younger people join the labour market and more older people stay in work

- The labour market is more global, with greater competition

- Changing gender roles and family structures are influencing workforce trends

Rotorua Chamber of Commerce chief executive Roger Gordon said local employers were already seeing some of the effects of these trends and needed to rethink their approach to staffing.

"Understanding the changes in demographics of the workforce is key to optimising business capability and having the appropriate resource in place to respond to business opportunities."

But Gordon said employers in Rotorua were reporting continual challenges in recruiting staff with the skills and attitudes required.

"The future will require employers to move outside some of the traditional mindsets of gender, ethnicity and age for particular roles. Already flexibility in time and job sharing are becoming common place as some companies move in part away from the traditional nine to five, full-time jobs."

Ageing workforce

The EEO report outlines how declining birth rates and more people staying in education will reduce the proportion of young New Zealanders entering the workforce in the next decade. At the same time, many of the baby boomers will be retiring and the report suggests talent will be scarce and the labour pool will age. Already there are more 60 to 64-year-olds in the workforce than 15 to 19-year-olds.

Personnel Resources consultant Angelique Tizard said her team were placing fewer young people into jobs.

"When school leavers come to our agency, we recommend they do further study at Waiariki Institute of Technology to upskill - we just don't have roles for them."

Despite the shortage of skilled applicants, Tizard said parental leave statistics showed how tough the market was for employees. Whereas 90 per cent of people did not return from parental leave in the past, she said 90 per cent were now coming back as soon as possible.

"The candidate who was in that contract role [previously] had an excellent chance of landing themselves a permanent role. This has not happened in the past couple of years.

"People are valuing the jobs they have, as they know they are harder to come by in this economy."

The global workforce

The skills and personnel shortage will be exacerbated by competition from overseas employers as global mobility increases - 14 per cent of the New Zealand-born population lives overseas and almost half of these people are tertiary-educated.

But the global labour market also creates opportunities to recruit into New Zealand.

Between 2001 and 2006, 60 per cent of labour force growth came from migration to New Zealand.

However, immigration trends are changing and New Zealand is likely to see fewer migrants from the United Kingdom, Australia and the Pacific and more from Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. While English is not a first language in these regions, the report suggests immigrants will be more highly qualified than New Zealanders and will have a more global perspective.

They are also more likely to leave New Zealand, with nearly a quarter of those arriving between 2001 and 2006 now living elsewhere.

Family changes affect workforce

Changing family dynamics are also influencing the labour market as more families have two working parents and a growing number of men willing to compromise their working life to care for children.

Women are still more likely to put their careers on hold for family, at 56 per cent, but almost a quarter of men would also do so.

Young women are now more highly educated than their male peers and women are now 47 per cent of the workforce.

However, they still only make up 20 per cent of senior managers and 9 per cent of board members of Top 100 New Zealand companies.

Talent ID director and Post Business employment columnist Kellie Hamlett said Rotorua's labour market did tend to mirror national trends _ including those identified in the EEO report.

``The workforce is changing and employers are finding it really challenging.''

She described the first quarter as a buoyant one for Rotorua's job market, but said skilled candidates were still hard to find.

And employers are increasingly looking for multi-skilled employees who can fill a number of roles.

Hamlett said businesses were focused on lean operating and looking to cross-train staff to add value across more diverse job descriptions.

The local workforce is also following the national ageing trend.

``About 75 per cent of our candidates in the last six months have been 40-plus.''

Hamlett said employers were recognising the value older candidates' maturity and life experience offered.

``They are less of a risk and recruitment costs money so [employers] are going for safe options.''

She has seen more people staying in work post-retirement age and suspects, in the current economic climate, many of them are doing so for financial reasons.

The higher number of older recruits reflects the lower proportion of younger people applying for jobs.

``I don't know where the young people are going. We are just not getting many under-30s applying.''

She said there were an increasing number of immigrants among candidates and these applicants often had a more proactive and assertive approach to finding work than New Zealanders - something non-immigrant candidates might need to start taking into account if they wanted to compete successfully.-->-->-->