Hays Office Support - October 2007

Public Sector

Hotspots

Candidate movement within the public sector's support market is high with candidates frequently changing positions, taking leave or chasing secondments. This is creating a very active and buoyant recruitment market. Yet despite this movement, shortages still exist.

In most demand at present are executive and personal assistants, for both temporary and permanent roles, followed by administrators with initiative and the ability to work independently. There is also a shortage of versatile and experienced administrators with the ability to assist with projects and ad hoc requirements.

Record officers with RecFind or Objective experience remain in strong demand, while part-time candidates have recently become a hotspot due to the tightening of many state government budgets.

In addition, high demand from the permanent market has reduced the traditional pool of readily available contract candidates who have been attracted by the sheer number of permanent positions vying for their skills; consequently there is a severe shortage of candidates for temporary roles ranging in length from one day to several months.

The coming quarter

As governments around Australia change structure (for example shared services), work on major projects or expand or evolve to meet the servicing demands of a growing population, vacancy activity in the support market is surpassing candidate availability, despite the current movement of candidates.

Employers have indicated recruitment activity will be high across the range of support functions this quarter and there should be an even mix of temporary and permanent vacancies available.

Salaries

Despite the annual salary increase of last quarter, we do expect additional increases in the New Year given the growing demand for support staff and employer awareness that salaries must remain competitive in order to retain staff. In particular the high demand for executive assistants will ensure candidates continue to demand and receive higher salaries.

Candidate trends

With vacancy activity remaining high, many temporary candidates are being transitioned into permanent roles, which lessens the candidate pool for further temporary roles. The general overall shortage of experienced office support staff means entry-level and less experienced candidates are being employed and trained into available roles.