Hays Accountancy & Finance - October 2007
Public Sector
Hotspots
Following the completion of financial year-end and the commencement of the budgeting period, demand within the public sector's accountancy and finance market has increased for project accountants, auditors, financial accountants, management accountants, systems accountants, finance managers, policy accountants and business analysts.
Systems accountant and analyst positions are becoming increasingly specialised and often require candidates with a background in either technology or task specialisation, such as SAP, Cognos, Dashboards, TM1; meanwhile financial accountants are required to have Great Plains, Oracle or Finance One skills.
Accounting policy candidates are currently in demand and positions generally require candidates with accounting qualifications in addition to excellent written and research skills.
Payroll candidates remain in high demand and those with any level of experience with ChrisPay, MicroPay, SAP, Attache, Pay Global, ADP or Kronos have good prospects. Employers seek candidates with experience in particular systems and are often unwilling to train someone in the particular system used within the department.
Finally, credit control and accounts receivable candidates with high volume government experience are highly sought after.
These hotspots of demand have been created due to a push within the public sector to improve the performance of individual departments. A focus on the budgets of departments sees project teams review performance, identify inefficiencies and implement new measures to save money.
The coming quarter
We expect an increase in contract, temporary and non-ongoing roles in this final quarter of the year, with permanent activity expected to accelerate again in February.
Despite the election, we do not expect a major reversal of demand within Federal Government recruitment due to the volume of current shortages.
Executive recruitment
Demand for financial executives has steadily increased as a result of continuing movements within the top levels of all public sectors in Australia. This is creating a domino effect within teams, where one resignation often stimulates several more.
The private sector is offering highly attractive salaries to entice senior finance executives from the public sector. This is particularly the case for candidates with both private and public sector experience.
In an additional trend, the move towards shared services in many state governments will continue to produce major changes to the structure of finance teams in individual departments and to the specific skills required in the shared services environment.
Salaries
AWA's are being used more frequently in order to attract and retain staff at the executive levels and above - although a change in government may affect this. Without flexibility in salary packaging the public sector will find it increasing difficult to attract staff, despite other attractive benefits.
When there is no opportunity for salary flexibility, employers are instead becoming more flexible in their requirements, with 'essential' skills becoming 'desirable' and conditions of employment, hours, and other benefits explored instead.
Hourly rates for contractors and temporary staff have become more competitive to ensure job offers are accepted and that candidates are retained for the duration of the contract. This is however leading to inflated candidate expectations.
Candidate trends
A consequence of the skills shortage is that candidates expect higher salaries and faster career advancement with responsibility at a higher level than they would previously have attained over the same time frame.
Meanwhile the availability of mature age candidates has increased - the general trend indicates that rather than pursuing early retirement, many candidates are remaining in the workforce for longer.
Finally, long-term commitment from temporary candidates has, in general, declined. With high levels of permanent vacancies attracting many candidates, there is a shortage of those seeking temporary positions and those that are available usually receive three to four job offers. While there are exceptions, many temporary candidates constantly look for other positions that pay above their current hourly rate.
Other trends
Employers able to make decisions 24 hours after receiving resumes are gaining access to the best available candidates. For those that wait, the best candidates have accepted job offers elsewhere by the time a decision is made.
