Two-thirds of Australian business leaders say they plan to recruit overseas workers this year, with the international border now open. (Image: Getty)
Australian businesses are seeking to reclaim an overseas workforce, new data from Robert Half shows.
International talent remains a crucial talent pipeline for Australian organisations, business leaders said.
The country locked out almost 20,000 skilled visa holders in 2021 due to the closed international border.
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With Australia’s international border now open, two years after it was slammed shut, Australian businesses are seeking to reclaim an overseas workers, new data from Robert Half shows.
A recent survey — conducted ahead of the country’s border reopening — found 71% of Australian business leaders plan to hire international talent on a permanent basis in 2022.
While the shortfall of international talent over the past two years will take time to recover, international talent remains a crucial talent pipeline for Australian organisations, business leaders said.
The global talent agency spoke to hiring managers, along with 100 CFOs and 100 CIOs from companies across Australia between November and December last year.
Australia opened its border to all fully-vaccinated visa holders on Monday, ending a hardline border policy enacted more than 700 days ago in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Phillippa Harrison, managing director of Tourism Australia said the agency believed the country would see a surge of international visitors, with other nations that had dropped hardline border policies experiencing a 30% to 50% spike in international arrivals.
Since the start of the pandemic in 2020 when the border closure locked out skilled visa holders, an overarching narrative has been a skills shortage that has hit both the corporate world and sectors that rely heavily on temporary migrants like farming and hospitality.
In August last year The Sydney Morning Herald reported that 19,345 holders of temporary skilled visas were outside Australia as of April 2021, looking to reenter the country but unable to do so.
The survey found that the over two-thirds of Australian business leaders planning to hire international talent said this plan resulted from an inability to find candidates with the required skills locally.
A further 61% said they are planning to bring on international hires on a contract basis.
The Australian tech sector in particular has reported a talent crunch from border closures.
On local shores, developers said they have been offered raises worth $50,000 a year, with some employers saying job candidates were demanding salaries 50% higher than before the pandemic.
Recent data from global recruitment giant Talent showed tech salaries are increasing 15-30% on average globally.
The Robert Half data supports these reports — it found 82% of Australian CIOs were planning to hire permanent IT talent from overseas and 75% wanted to hire international talent on a contract basis.
It also reflects the wholesale change in business attitudes toward remote work since the start of the pandemic, with many companies embracing permanent flexible work arrangements along with hiring strategies that look beyond major cities for talent.
Almost three in four business leaders said they’re likely to hire international talent to relocate and work in Australia.
However, 68% also said they are likely to hire international talent to work remotely, with this figure rising to 77% among CIOs.
Ben Thompson, co-founder and chief executive of Employment Hero, told Business Insider Australia recently it had joined leaders like Canva and Atlassian in expanding its remote work policies in 2021.
In the past year the company had recruited across Australia and the world, including places like Muswellbrook and Wollongong locally, and Auckland, Singapore and Manila internationally.
“Looking outside your home town for talent, whether that’s remote and regional parts of Australia, or labour rich countries with high levels of tertiary education is a strong consideration for businesses,” Thompson said.
David Jones, senior managing director of Robert Half for Asia Pacific, said that even with the resumption of international migration, it is expected that it will take several years to overcome the impacts.
“In a global economy, one of the biggest benefits of accessing international talent for our local workforce, aside from plugging immediate skills gaps, is that it can introduce new transferable skills to existing teams and the broader talent pool,” Jones said.
But Jones also echoed calls within the Australian business community, including by members of the Tech Council of Australia that counts Atlassian’s chief executives as its founding members, calling for more government investment to build training pipelines to bring more Australians into growing industries.
“There is no doubt the current war for talent is placing pressure on Australian companies to focus on recruiting from overseas, but it is also evident that companies need to strengthen internal talent pipelines and be able to attract and retain local skills to develop a truly agile tech-first workforce,” Jones said.
“Organisations must be mindful of the fact that while international skilled migration will help mitigate skills shortages, we will also start to see talent leave Australia again as border restrictions ease around the world, particularly in the Asia Pacific region.”