Australian Businesses Target UK to Fill Skills Gaps

Oct. 27, 2008 - PRLog -- Overseas recruitment is high on the agenda for the Australian businesses that attended the Opportunities Australia Expo in London and Leeds over the past two weekends.

The event attracted more than 30 Australian businesses and government departments, all of whom were looking to attract skilled Britons for positions that are in demand in the Australian market.

The expos aim to put Australian organisations in touch with skilled candidates looking to migrate. Employers were looking to fill a range of positions, from civil engineers and project managers through to doctors, nurses and teachers.

“International recruitment is one of the important ways for us to reach our recruitment targets in the future,” said Ian Spargo from Ramsay Health Care. The organisation, who have attended previous Opportunities Australia Expos, were looking to find nurses, midwives and specialist doctors. “We have talked to so many people,” said Mr Spargo. “The quality of people has been excellent and we’ve arranged interviews with 60 candidates.”

The expo also featured a special ‘Western Australia Pavilion’, to attract much-needed skills to the rapidly growing region. Western Australian companies who joined the pavilion included United Group Resources, the Australian Medical Assocation and Western Power.

“We have seen really, really good quality tradespeople. If we could have made offers to all of them, we would have done,” said Lucy Johnson, Recruitment Coordinator at Western Power, who had already interviewed 14 candidates through the Leeds expo and had set up more for London.

Over 10000 Britons attended the London and Leeds events looking for information about starting a new life Down Under. Gary Zeelie, who travelled to the expo from Surrey, says that there are more opportunities in Australia and a better lifestyle. “We spent 8 months travelling in Australia and loved it. We hope to move in the next 12 to 18 months.”

Despite the global financial outlook, increasing numbers of Australian employers are looking to the growing immigrant market to fill their skills shortages. The attraction of the UK, according to Philip Sykes from Silver Trowel Trade Training, is that “there is a strong skill set in England that marries well with what Australia is crying out for.”

Mr Sykes collected more that 100 expressions of interest over the two days of the expo. The organisation, which helps those looking either to convert their UK training or to learn a new trade, attended the expo to attract international students to their training schools in Australia and the United Kingdom.

Amy Chamberlain from Golding reported similar success, but pointed out that it is not just about filling roles straight away. “We came to the expo to recruit, and also to find potential candidates for the future,” said Ms Chamberlain. “It’s definitely a worthwhile opportunity.”

The businesses at the expo were joined by a number of state departments and state governments from ACT, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Western Australia, the Northern Territory and the Murray Regional Development Board from New South Wales., who offered both job opportunities and information about their state. Visitors to the expo could also talk with service providers such as migration agents, foreign exchange specialists and international shipping companies. The Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) also attended the expo to give advice and information about the migration process.

Expo organisers Working In said that the response was huge, but not surprising. “It was a huge success because the demand for skilled workers is so high. There are gaps in knowledge and skills in Australia and this expo has once again shown that there is no shortage of skilled people wanting to come and fill those gaps,” said Scott Mathieson, CEO of Working In.

These are the fifth and sixth Opportunities Australia Expos that Working In have run so far this year, and they show no signs of slowing down, having recently announced that they will be running an Opportunities Australia Expo in New Zealand in June 2009 to attract migrants from across the Tasman.

Working In has been recruiting returning Australians and new migrants to Australia since 2003 and works directly with immigration to identify skill shortages and seek recruits to fill those gaps.

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Working In
GPO Box 2096
Sydney, NSW 2001, Australia
Ph +61 2 9252 9800

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Working In are global experts on connecting employers with skilled people moving country through international recruitment expos, magazines and the web. Committed to helping companies recruit people around the world since 1998.