New Zealand is struggling to keep pace with labour demands as employers in high-skill industries still find difficulty filling jobs.
This is according to the 2017
Hays Global Skills Index, done in collaboration with Oxford Economics, published this week.
“Demand is much higher for professionals in high-skill industries relative to medium- and lower-skill industries across New Zealand since a lot of routine, repetitive jobs can now – or will soon be – automated,” said
Jason Walker, Managing Director of Hays in New Zealand.
Unfortunately, he said, those available in the market do not always possess the skills that employers need. It’s a source of frustration, but the talent mismatch could be eased through training and education.
Key indicator scores for New Zealand indicate talent mismatch, wage pressure in high-skill industries, and overall wage pressure.
On the positive side, the study found New Zealand’s education system is well-equipped to meet future needs and that market legislation is fairly flexible.
“People must adapt their skill set to meet the new demand brought about by a more tech-centric work landscape,” Walker said.
Employers, for their part, should adapt their training for workers whose jobs will be changed rather than eliminated through technology.
The Hays Global Skills Index offers a yearly assessment of trends affecting labour markets. It examines dynamics at play across 33 countries.
According to the Hays website, businesses continue to compete for sought-after skills. “When employers don’t have the right people with the right skills, the implications can be far-reaching.”
Aside from dealing with skills shortages, companies also have to contend with continually changing labour markets across the globe, best described as:
1. Employers and workers are increasingly taking up less rigid working patterns.They are adopting innovative working patterns, specifically, freelance, contract, temporary or on-call jobs.
“The greater flexibility afforded to employers and workers and the proliferation of mobile broadband are driving these innovative work patterns, making it easier than ever for businesses and workers to interact, regardless of location.”
2. Skilled migration is on the rise.“Migrants are increasingly well-educated. In the US in 2015, nearly half of recent arrivals were educated to university level. In the European Union, the proportion of all people born in another country who were university educated in 2016 was 29 per cent, up from 26 per cent five years earlier.
3. New technology is raising questions about who will do the work of tomorrow and what that work will look like.As technologies -- artificial intelligence, big data, online platforms and computers that communicate with each other with little or no human intervention -- grow in prevalence in workplaces, they will cause some roles to become less common, others to move up or down the skills spectrum and others to be freshly created due to greater efficiencies and lower transaction costs.
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