ANZSCO2332-11,12,14,15New South Wales

Civil Engineering ProfessionalsApril 2017

Labour Economics Office New South Wales

Department of Employment

Current labour market ratingMetropolitan shortage

Previous labour market rating (April 2016)Recruitment difficulty

Comments

Recruitment for civil engineering professionals across NSW is mixed. Regional employers fill their surveyed vacancies with relative ease, while employers in Sydney experience a shortage of civil engineering professionals with a low proportion of surveyed vacancies having beenfilled.

Survey results

  • The Survey of Employers who have Recently Advertised (SERA) was conducted for the occupations of civil engineering professionals in April quarter 2017.
  • Around 60 per cent of surveyed vacancies were filled. While this figure was very similar to that for the previous year, it was below the average for the five years to 2016 (66 per cent).
  • Recruitment for civil engineering professionals has been difficult in NSW, with theseoccupations either being in shortage or experiencing a recruitment difficulty since 2008.
  • There was an average of 20.9 applicants per vacancy (below the average of 34.1 applicants per vacancy over the five years to 2016).
  • There was an average of 11.9 qualified applicants per vacancy. For the purposes of this research a qualified applicant is one with a four year degree or higher qualification in engineering with a relevant specialisation.
  • Overall, employers considered an average of 1.2 applicants per vacancy to be suitable (compared to the average of 1.6 over the five years to 2016).
  • There is a shortage of civil engineering professionals in Sydney. Compared to their regional counterparts, metropolitan employers filled a lower proportion of vacancies and attracted a third of the number of qualified applicants and suitable applicants per vacancy.
  • Employers based in Sydney filled 38 per cent of surveyed vacancies (compared with 78percent for regional employers).
  • There was an average of 5.0 qualified applicants per vacancy, of whom 0.6 were considered to be suitable (compared to 18.0 and 1.7, respectively in regional NSW). Additionally, half of all metropolitan employers surveyed did not considered any applicants who applied to be suitable.
  • Shortages in Sydney were across all civil engineering professions.
  • The Department surveyed vacancies across engineering consulting firms, local councils and specialist recruitment agencies.
  • The level of experience sought varied between surveyed employers, with some advertising graduate positions while others, for example,required suitable applicants to have a minimum of 10 years practical experience.
  • Employers also had a preference for applicants who had experience in the sector or specialisation in which the vacancy was advertised.
  • There was also a preference for applicants who had recently worked in the Australian labour market as employers sought engineers who had experience working under Australian and NSW building codes and standards. Several employers indicated that they would not recruit overseas applicants for this reason.
  • A small number of metropolitan employers indicated they had advertised overseas in order to attract Australian expatriate engineers back to Australia.
  • Some employers indicated that, in addition to advertising online, they advertised through recruitment agencies and by word-of-mouth. All of these employers were able to fill their vacancies.
  • Around 20 per cent of employers surveyed were seeking chartered engineers.
  • These occupations have been rated as having a metropolitan shortage. The majority of employers in Sydney were unable to fill their advertised civil engineering vacancies and half were unable to attract a single suitable applicant.

Unsuitable applicants

  • Around 90 per cent of qualified applicants were considered to be unsuitable.
  • These applicants either lacked the minimum level of experience required (this included a number of recent graduates) or did not have experience in the sector advertised. Employers routinely commented that they didn’t believe engineering experience to be transferable between sectors.
  • Some applicants were not proficient in the engineering software used by the employer.
  • The small number of employers advertising for chartered engineers considered all engineers without this title to be unsuitable.

Demand and supply trends

  • Demand for engineers has increased over the year, with strong growth in building work continuing and engineering construction demonstrating signs of recovery.[1]
  • The value of building activity in NSW rose by 15.1 per cent over the year to 2016, following growth of 9.7 per cent in 2015.
  • Engineering construction increased by 8.2 per cent over the year to 2016, which is the first annual increase recorded since 2012.
  • Reflecting this growth, the total value of construction work done increased by 12.6 per cent over the year to 2016 (compared with 3.2 per cent over the year to 2015).
  • The number of internet vacancies for civil engineering professionals increased by nearly a third over the year to April 2017. Vacancies numbers, however, are still below their pre-Global Financial Crisis levels.[2]
  • ABS labour force data suggests that employment of civil engineering professionals in NSW increased considerably to 22,000 over the year to February 2017. The data, however, is subject to considerable sampling variability.[3]
  • The average number of people employed in NSW coal mines over the year to March 2017 fell by threeper cent from over the year to March 2016.[4]
  • The number of domestic students completing undergraduate degrees in civil engineering averaged around 830 per annum over the three years to 2015. This was an increase of around 40 per cent compared with the average of the previous three years (590 per annum).[5]
  • There were around 250 primary applicant 457 temporary skilled migration visas granted for civil engineering professionals in 2016-17 (compared to an average of 125 per annum over the three years to 2015-16). [6] Note that the visas are only for four years and there is no automatic conversion to permanent residency.

Labour Economics Office New South Wales

Department of Employment

[1]ABS, Construction Work Done, Preliminary, December 2016, Table 8, chain volume measures, original data. These figures are adjusted for inflation.

[2]Department of Employment, Internet Vacancy Index, April 2017, 12 month moving average.

[3]ABS, Labour Force Survey, February 2017, Department of Employment trend.

[4] Coal Services Statistics, Production employment at NSW coal mines, March 2017.

[5]Department of Education and Training, Higher Education Student Data Collection, 2015, customised tables.

[6] Department of Immigration and Border Protection, Subclass 457 visas granted pivot table, accessed 21 July 2017.