As business makes a comeback from COVID-19, our recruitment and employment agency sector is poised to power the pathway to jobs and opportunities.
It has happened before. A new report backs up the claim, that agency workers are critical to Australia’s economic recovery.
In May 2020, the Recruitment, Consulting & Staffing Association (RCSA) published this report – “Leveraging Australia’s Agency Workforce to Drive Economic Recovery” (click here to download the report) – and among its key findings is that agency staffing firms “play a vital role during times of structural and cyclical economic change, where a significant level of churn in employment is experienced.”
Put another way, agency support can offer great employment alternatives for businesses, helping to diminish the risk for employers at a time of economic uncertainty and a slow rebound. They have the option, through agencies, to contract certain jobs relatively quickly to meet demand – without having to guarantee permanent employment so early in the cycle.
Agencies are the experts to recruit, assess and deliver people for temporary or contract employment – for which there can be strong demand – “prior to the creation of permanent jobs.”
Gradually, as the demand for certain roles shifts – for example, call centres and logistics – agencies can support the redeployment of staff to other areas. The agency staffing firms are “well placed to rapidly train and deploy contractors to these new jobs” which will start to emerge in the post-COVID-19 economy.
International evidence following the GFC of 2008, reveals that agency workers were among the largest and fastest beneficiaries of a rebound. For example, in Germany, after a drop of about 23 per cent during the GFC, there was a 49 per cent rebound in employment for agency workers over 18 months following the GFC.
Perhaps this trend can be repeated here in Australia too.
Australia’s unemployment rate rose from 6.2 per cent in April to 7.1 per cent in May according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. It is predicted, by the Federal Treasury, to be about 10 per cent in June 2020 – after about 1.6 million Australians lost their incomes as COVID-19 locked down our economy.
There is an imperative and an incentive to get people back into employment as quickly as possible and reduce “the amount of time that Australians spend unemployed.” JobKeeper and JobSeeker schemes cannot go on forever and the Government has indicated as much.
At Citrus Group, we look forward to being part of the solution for businesses deploying staff into new roles, or transitioning staff into other roles. As history has shown, the agency workforce and specialist recruiters will be a force to drive Australia’s economic recovery.
For contact centre recruitment solutions, support, and deployment we’re here to help at Citrus Group.
E: [email protected] T: 02 8203 5760 W: www.citrusgroup.com.au