Businesses in nearly all sectors are struggling with the recruitment of new employees and have resorted to reducing their operating hours and services to accommodate and not burn out existing staff.
On the other side of the COVID-19 pandemic, months after people were stood down from their jobs due to covid restrictions or spent time working from home, almost all work sectors are struggling to reintroduce staff to the old method of working or from hiring new staff.
According to the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics, the sectors with the biggest absolute number of job vacancies are healthcare and social assistance (68,900), accommodation and food services (51,900), and professional scientific and technical services (42,900).
Government projections have identified that at least 10 different job sectors will be in need of a new influx of trained workers in the coming five years.
At the beginning of September the government, employers, unions and the broader community came together to take part in the federal jobs and skills summit which puts forward initiatives to help build a bigger, better trained and more productive workforce, boost real wages and living standards, and create more opportunities for more Australians.
Locally, the hardest hit sectors have been hospitality, manufacturing and health with some rules reverting to the peak of the pandemic while in other sectors, residents are missing out on receiving the length of care they require.
Hospitality and manufacturing sectors in disarray
Daycare shortage a compounding problem
Health sector struggles with staff
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