What does the the future of infrastructure recruitment look like?

Candidate shortages in the infrastructure industry will result in project timelines extending and project costs growing if businesses do not alter their hiring strategy.

My previous update on the infrastructure labour market outlined how the industry will continue to experience candidate shortages over the next three years. With a predicted shortfall of over 105,000 candidates in 2023, one in three infrastructure jobs advertised will go unfilled next year.

Whilst candidate shortages will improve for other industries towards the end of next year, infrastructure recruitment will continue to be difficult beyond 2023 as the impacts of the aging workforce worsen and government investment in the sector continues to increase. As a result, the future of infrastructure recruitment will involve implementing new strategies into your hiring process to attract top infrastructure talent.

Plan your workforce in advance

With infrastructure recruitment getting increasingly competitive, don’t expect to fill vacancies on short notice. Proactive labour force planning will be critical in overcoming the challenge of labour shortages in the future of infrastructure recruitment. Take some time to refine your labour sourcing and retention strategies and be prepared for recruitment to take much longer than it has in the past.

When you have a project coming up that you will need to scale up your workforce for, start the recruitment process straight away to give your business the best chance of finding the right candidates. In addition to this, plan for regular employee turnover. Employee resignations can sometimes come unexpectedly, but if you have contingency plans in place for replacing staff when they move on, resignations will be less disruptive to your business.

Consider the industry’s aging workforce and focus on attracting young talent

One of the largest recruitment opportunities in the infrastructure sector right now is young talent. With over 40% of workers in the sector expected to retire in the next 15 years, your business needs to have a strategy in place to counteract the impact of an aging workforce.

Investing in and taking a chance on young talent will be critical in ensuring that you have a pipeline of young employees growing with your business. Think of the candidates that have the right attitude and personality but are a few steps away from where you need them to be technically. Teaching skills is much easier than teaching attitude. This is where the biggest opportunities in infrastructure recruitment will be in the future.

Graduates and apprentices

In the future of infrastructure recruitment, employers will have great difficulty sourcing experienced infrastructure professionals. When you cannot find experienced talent, university graduates are a great alternative. Whilst they might not have the experience or specific skills you’re looking for, they often have suitable personality traits and a willingness to learn that, combined with the right training, will make them your ideal candidate in no time.

If you don’t already have a graduate program in place, consider creating one or reaching out to a third party who can run one on your behalf. In their first jobs out of university, graduates value joining an organisation where they will be supported and have lots to learn. Creating a graduate program will ensure that you’re offering graduates the jobs they want. In addition to this, if graduates enjoy their experience working for your organisation, they are likely to be incredibly loyal and stay with the business long into the future.

In infrastructure recruitment, attracting young talent goes beyond university graduates. To attract young labourers, attend trade career events to speak with young people considering a career in the infrastructure industry. Talking with young people will raise their awareness of the careers available to them in infrastructure, and they will often remember your business as the one that made the effort to speak to them.

Sponsor international talent

When you do need an experienced candidate and graduate infrastructure recruitment is not an option, consider assisting international candidates to move to Australia and work for you. Skilled migration still has not reached its pre-COVID levels, as the costs and timeframe of getting a visa to work in Australia are significantly larger than in other countries. Australia is losing skilled migrants to other countries like Canada as a result, where it is comparatively easier and more affordable to relocate to.

With fewer migrants opting to move to Australia on their own accord, reach out to skilled professionals and offer visa sponsorship and relocation assistance to convince them to come work for you. Whilst candidate shortages are being experienced across the globe, Australia is a country that many experienced infrastructure professionals would love the opportunity to relocate to, and you should use this to your advantage.

To minimise the impact that any cultural differences have, run safety and quality training for international talent to get them up to speed on Australia’s regulations. Be sure to run team social events to integrate international employees into the team, so that they feel welcomed and want to stay with your business long term.

Look interstate for experienced candidates

There are difficulties with infrastructure recruitment and candidate shortages across Australia, and you may not be able to convince people to move away from home at this time. However, there are many infrastructure workers still working in roles that they have had to relocate for that would love the opportunity to come back closer to home.

According to industry insights provided by SEEK, 82% of engineering candidates from Darwin and Hobart were more likely to apply to jobs external to their local area, followed by 73% from Canberra and 60% from Adelaide. As for candidates looking for roles in construction, 67% from Darwin, 58% from Hobart and 53% from Canberra were more likely to apply to jobs external to their local area.

During the pandemic, many infrastructure employees relocated away from areas that experienced tighter COVID-19 restrictions to either avoid lockdowns or find work when there was less on offer at home. Most of these people are still working away from home but would move back if they were presented with the right opportunity, especially one that offers relocation assistance!

These candidates, however, may not be actively looking for opportunities in their home state. Make sure that you are tapping into passive candidate networks and reaching out to anyone with experience in your state that matches your job description to source these candidates.

Engage a recruitment agency to do it for you

As specialists in infrastructure recruitment, Fuse is connected with the Australian infrastructure talent pool. Our connections with candidates in the industry allow us to identify the best talent for each vacancy, even in times of candidate shortages.

Our consultants use a vast range of platforms to source candidates which extends our reach, bringing you a greater pool of candidates to choose from.

If you’d prefer to have a recruiter do the hard work for you, reach out to me by filling out the form on this page.

Sources: Bloomberg, Australia Faces Mid-2023 Capacity Squeeze on Infrastructure Boom, 2021; Ineight, Preparing for the infrastructure boom during a labor shortage, 2022; Infrastructure Australia, Infrastructure workforce and skills supply, 2021; Shortlist, Job ad growth slows; Overseas hiring challenges mount; and more, 2022