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Episode 54
189 Plays7 months ago
News for the week beginning 25 March 2024 and Question of the Week: "How large is the gender pay gap in the Australian recruitment industry?" ?"
#rna #recruitmentnewsaustralia #recruitmentpodcast
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Transcript
Weekly News Introduction
00:00:08
Speaker
This is the news for the week beginning the 25th of March, 2024. I'm Ross Clennett.
Unemployment Rate Decline
00:00:14
Speaker
Australia's unemployment rate declined to 3.7% in February, down by 0.4 percentage points from January's figure of 4.1% due to the number of unemployed people dropping by 52,000 and the number of people in work jumping by a massive 116,000, according to ABS data released last Thursday.
00:00:34
Speaker
The ABS attributed the surge in employment to the high number of people in December and January who already had received a job offer and were just waiting to start work in February. On a state basis, South Australia recorded the nation's lowest unemployment rate at 3.2% and Tasmania recorded the highest at 4.5%.
Positive Job Market Outlook
00:00:53
Speaker
The outlook for workers continues to be bright according to the Jobs and Skills Australia recruitment experiences and outlook survey of over 1000 employers last month. 26% of employers forecast an increase in headcount in the upcoming three month period.
00:01:07
Speaker
a two percentage point rise compared to January and a six percentage point rise compared to the December figure of 20%. This represents 30% more employers forecasting a headcount increase compared to only two months ago.
Workplace Benefits and Diversity
00:01:21
Speaker
Only 2% of employers surveyed in February forecast a reduction in headcount in the upcoming three months. You and You Recruitment Partners Managing Director Craig Sneesby announced a new staff benefit.
00:01:36
Speaker
subsidised childcare via a LinkedIn update on the 14th of March. UNU is offering up to $10,000 pre-tax salary per child per annum every year until the child is four. SNESB said that with one quarter of their workforce currently raising children, the subsidy will not only support their workforce but also inspire others to do their bit. I believe it will have a huge impact on the ongoing battle to reduce the gender pay gap
00:02:03
Speaker
I hope we are the spark that ignites many organisations to extend their commitment to their hardworking staff well beyond a parental leave policy," he said.
Construction Industry Challenges
00:02:13
Speaker
The construction industry has warned the federal government's goal of building 1.2 million new well-located homes in the next five years will begin on the back foot because of a significant worker shortage. The government's five-year target, part of the National Housing Accord agreed to by the states and territories, begins mid-year. Build Skills Australia, a group tasked by the government to find solutions to the workforce challenges facing the construction industry, said that to stay on track, the government would need to build 60,000 new homes each quarter
00:02:43
Speaker
requiring a workforce of 90,000 more than currently exists. The group's executive director of research and planning, Robert Sobria, said that attracting many workers in such a short timeframe was impossible. Clearly next quarter, we're not going to be able to achieve that 60,000 run rate, which means that in future quarters, we're going to have to deliver more to make up for what we don't do at the front end of the program, he said.
00:03:09
Speaker
Master builders Australia chief executive Danita Warren said there also needed to be a push to attract more women to the sector as currently only four percent of apprentices are female.
Business Fraud and Insolvencies
00:03:21
Speaker
A 25 year old IT contractor has been sentenced to two years and six months behind bars for swindling more than sixty six thousand dollars while on assignment at the Australian National Maritime Museum. The contractor gained unauthorized access to the museum's accounts payable system
00:03:39
Speaker
manipulating bank account details and acquiring financial information from various individuals and businesses stored within the systems. He used the information to make fraudulent transactions, including spending over $15,000 on four-wheel drive enhancements and mechanical services, as well as more than $20,000 on high-end IT gear. The Maritime Museum uncovered the irregularities in its financial records in November 2022 and reported it to the AFP
00:04:07
Speaker
who identified and apprehended the suspect at his residence in March, 2023. The central local court handed down on Friday a sentence of two years and six months imprisonment with a non-parole period of 15 months.
00:04:21
Speaker
Monthly business insolvencies have risen to a level not seen since 2015 as the long expected spike in corporate collapses hits the Australian economy. Figures published last week by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, ASIC, show 967 businesses entered external administration or had a controller appointed to them in February.
00:04:42
Speaker
That is a significant jump over the 555 collapses recorded in January and the single largest monthly tally since October 2015. The construction sector remains particularly vulnerable, ASIC data shows, with 272 businesses going under last month for most of any industry sector. Accommodation and food services was the next hardest
00:05:04
Speaker
hit sector tallying 137 collapses.
Ethical Concerns in Employment
00:05:08
Speaker
Industry onlookers have suggested the long expected spike is a catch up to the number of insolvencies that would have otherwise occurred, except for the business support measures enacted through pandemic lockdowns, especially the ATO's relaxation of normal debt collection and compliance policies. Healthcare recruitment agencies in New Zealand are coming under fire as internationally qualified nurses, IQNs,
00:05:32
Speaker
are relocating to New Zealand without confirmed jobs, according to the Nurses Union, New Zealand Nurses Organisation. New Zealand has a nurse shortage with 2,630 vacancies yet to be filled according to the most recent data from Health New Zealand, but the government's haste to plug the 2,500 nurse shortage has resulted in unethical recruitment, the union says. Almost 50% of trained nurses who have registered to work in New Zealand since the country's borders reopened in 2022
00:06:02
Speaker
arrive from India according to Immigration New Zealand statistics as of December 1. The union has urged recruitment agencies to ensure their nurse clients have secured employment before bringing them into the country. Radio New Zealand reported last Tuesday that healthcare workers were recruited by a company operating in Canterbury which promised them jobs and a valid visa if they relocated to New Zealand. However, the recruitment company
00:06:27
Speaker
has allegedly left them stranded without employment and they are now facing difficulty securing work in New Zealand.
Discrimination and Workplace Reforms
00:06:34
Speaker
A report exploring the working conditions of pregnant employees and parents was released last Tuesday, calling for major changes in Australian workplaces to combat the persistent discrimination faced by pregnant women. This is the first Australian national review into work-related discrimination, disadvantage and bias among pregnant and parent workers since 2014.
00:06:54
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Over 1200 employees who are pregnant or are working parents responded to the survey with 95% identifying as female. Lead author of the report, Dr. Rachel Potter from the University of South Australia, says she initiated the national review after hearing countless anecdotes
00:07:12
Speaker
from pregnant women and parents about their treatment at work. Since 2014, there have been shifting patterns in the workforce. The latest ABS data shows that over 20% of all Australian households have young children. And the Australian Institute of Family Studies found that the percentage of dual-earner parent couples with children under 18 years has increased from 53% in 1996 to 61% in 2016.
00:07:37
Speaker
The latest Australian National Review follows a 2023 study that found that 30 years after it was outlawed in Australia workplace discrimination is still rife for pregnant women and parents. More than 60% of new mothers returning to work said their opinions are often ignored, they feel excluded and are given unmanageable workloads.
00:07:56
Speaker
Almost one in five women returning from maternity leave were refused requests to work flexible hours or from home. And 25% of women said their workplace did not provide appropriate breastfeeding facilities. Despite being a legal requirement, 30% of pregnant women didn't receive information about their upcoming leave entitlements. While on leave, 38% reported negative or offensive remarks for taking time off work or to care for a sick child. And 13% were treated so badly
00:08:24
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I felt they had no option but to resign. The report says there needs to be closer consultation between employers and employees to ensure the former understand pregnancy related needs and communicate role changes for new parents returning to work.
00:08:39
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The report also recommends appropriate space for breastfeeding or expressing milk should be made available. Disrespectful or negative behaviours should not be tolerated by management or HR and there must be greater mandatory regulation of employers to ensure that they are meeting their legal requirements.
RCSA's Talent X Event
00:08:57
Speaker
The RCSA's annual trade show Talent X is on again this time in Melbourne at the Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre on Thursday the 9th of May starting at 9am.
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Speaker
The headline speaker is Mark Boris and two future of work experts, Dr. Ben Hamer and Bastiel Treptel will also be presenting on the main stage. This year for the first time, there will be a stage dedicated to back office employees such as operations, marketing and technology, as well as a consultant's stage featuring presentations relevant to those on a consulting desk. Also for the first time this year, Recruitment News Australia will be podcasting live from the event.
00:09:35
Speaker
Please come and say hello to me and Ross on the day and maybe pose a live question of the week to us. If you're looking for more information, you can visit the RCSA website at rcsa.com.au and we look forward to seeing you there. That's your news for we're commencing 25th of March, 2024. I'm Adele Last.
Gender Pay Gap Discussion
00:10:07
Speaker
Question of the week this week is prompted by the release of the gender pay gap data recently and also International Women's Day. And the question, Adele, how wide is the gender pay gap in the Australian recruitment industry? Do you have an answer for us? Well, I have some data we can use as a model, I suppose. If we look at Hayes as an organisation being the largest
00:10:34
Speaker
number of recruiters working, the largest number of consultants working in Australia for one business. And we look at Haze data being that their gap is 11.1% on base salary and 14% on total package. That's just the Haze data. I know that's an imperfect example to use because it's not comparable to all businesses, but we're using that as a means of saying, as an industry, it looks like we're doing pretty well.
00:11:03
Speaker
All right, well, I suppose you could argue we are because across the whole country, the median base salary gap is 14 and a half percent. So that's nearly three and a half percentage points higher than what Hayes have reported. And then total remuneration, 21.7% and Hayes were reporting 14.1. So I'd say we're doing pretty well. Adele, is it good enough?
00:11:34
Speaker
Well, the data is one thing, as we know, and the reality might be very different. And as I mentioned, Haze may not be comparable to other examples in our industry, given the vast majority of businesses in the recruitment industry in Australia are most likely small businesses, certainly much smaller obviously than Haze. So, you know, it's good. It's good to see. It's encouraging. It's great that this data is now being reported. I think everybody would agree on that, that it's fantastic that we're starting to shine a light
00:12:02
Speaker
and start to analyze the data, but how wide is the gap? It's too wide. Any gap is too wide, in my opinion. Why should somebody be paid less based on gender? It doesn't make sense, particularly in an industry like ours where I believe the proportion of females coming into the industry in the early stages is greater. So more women start in the recruitment industry as a percentage
00:12:31
Speaker
compared to men, but then we seem to lose them from the industry for lots of different reasons. So let's be very clear. This data is not reporting same job comparisons. It is all jobs. So listeners are clear.
00:12:52
Speaker
And what it indicates is that when you take all jobs, that we've still got a reasonable gap. So does that mean, Adele, that more senior roles are occupied by men? So more senior and more well-paying roles are occupied by men in the local recruitment industry compared to women? Well, I think it means that, yes, that it is possible that more men are in more senior roles that are higher paid.
00:13:20
Speaker
But it could also mean that when women do get an opportunity at those senior roles, they're paid less for the same job. So it could be either or, or both in fact. And that's, you know, the detail of the data we don't know. So is it, okay, this is a stereotype, but let's kind of go with it. So is it that a mediocre man is going to push harder for more? Well, actually mediocre might be too strong a word. Let's say.
00:13:48
Speaker
bang average. A bang average man will push for more than a highly competent woman because a highly competent woman may be either the recipient of greater flexibility or she's thinking a little bit further ahead and about a potential family and she wants more flexibility and she's less likely to be assertive
00:14:13
Speaker
with respect to her own pay? Do you think that's a stereotype that would stand up or not in our industry? Yeah, I really think this is the crux of the issue, actually, underlyingly. I think that, as I said, I think awareness is great and that will start to close the gap across all industries. That's a good thing. But we underneath, underlyingly need to change the attitude that women have around themselves and their
00:14:42
Speaker
abilities and their competencies and their aggression around being paid well for what they do. I really do think women have this attitude around being grateful for what they're given as opposed to having the right to own it. And that comes from childhood and upbringing and what we're told in school and all sorts of millions of other little interactions that a girl might have through school.
00:15:09
Speaker
that get to the point where, you know, when she's a woman, yeah, she's thinking about these other factors, things like wanting to start a family or being, you know, maybe not as good, you know, the imposter syndrome and all of these things. So I think it's a movement that has to change, you know, it's an attitudinal movement for women to stop making those excuses to themselves, stop allowing those excuses to hinder them and hold them back.
00:15:38
Speaker
because they know it's not true. Logically, we know it's not true, right? You know, my own personal circumstance. I took very little time, I have two children, and I took very little time out of the workforce when I had the children. One, because I was actually really frightened for being away for too long. I didn't want to leave a big gap that someone could jump into. And second of all, I tried to just keep involved and tried to keep my salary active. I was consciously aware of it.
00:16:07
Speaker
And even I don't think I pushed as hard as I probably could. In fact, I know that a man would have come in and been paid more than I did and progress faster than I did, even though I was only out of the workforce for across two children, maybe eight months across both of them. So, you know, in my own personal circumstance, I know, and I'm not a shy person. So, you know, what stopped me? What stopped me pushing harder? What stopped me demanding this highest salary when I got back? It was somewhat that idea that, you know, well,
00:16:36
Speaker
I need other things. I need the flexibility. I'm happy to just, you know, keep the status quo rather than push really hard from a paid perspective. So you think about my experience and I reported to more women than men across my time as an employee. And when I think about the highest performing recruiters, so people who weren't in leadership roles in each of those businesses, a majority
00:17:06
Speaker
And in fact, I'd say probably a high majority of the highest billers were women. And this is across big, a big business like Hayes, when it was accountancy personnel in London, to much smaller businesses. And don't forget, this is like more than 20 years ago. Like I haven't been an employee since 2003. So I, you know, when I think, I mean, I know buying experience is just my own experience, but
00:17:36
Speaker
I think, wow, well, if that's replicated across the whole industry, then I think that there's a lot of optimism for the pay gap. But is it now because blue collar is so much bigger as a proportion of our market and that is generally dominated by men in our industry? Does that sort of swing the balance back more in favour of men? I'm not
00:18:05
Speaker
I'm not really sure I know the answer. I think also women are more likely to be, pardon me, founders or owners of businesses in the recruitment industry more than other industries comparatively. You know, if you think about, there's probably more women that can start a business in recruitment for all those reasons that you mentioned as being high performers or coming back after leave and wanting to start their own business for whatever reason. So I would,
00:18:34
Speaker
have a guess to say that, you know, anecdotally, I think there are more female owners and founders in recruitment than in other comparable industries, maybe like, you know, IT startups or law firms or whatever the case might be. So we should have a distortion the other way. I mean, that wouldn't that be nice for us to see our industry actually, you know, bucking the trend in terms of the gender pay gap and being able to lead the way.
00:19:01
Speaker
in industry showing that women are paid equally. Well, and I think the flip side of that is that when your pay gets to a certain point as an owner, it's well, certainly as a sole owner, it's more efficient from a tax point of view.
00:19:24
Speaker
to take the money as dividends and dividends don't show up in pay gap data because that's paid to people as a result of an equity share. It's not as a result of labor. So therefore that does put a ceiling because if you've got the owner of a recruitment business, she's going to take her salary and total remuneration from the business up to, I think it's 180,000. I'm not actually sure.
00:19:53
Speaker
But if she's got an employee there, I mean, it could be a man or it could be a woman, they could be earning 300,000, which would look like they're earning more, which technically they are. But if you factor in the.
00:20:07
Speaker
the dividends than the owner was would still be likely earning a lot more. So that's that is that sort of aspect from a tax point of view could create some distortion. But of course, because we don't know the actual data, we don't know for
Call for Gender Pay Audits
00:20:22
Speaker
sure. We are just hypothesizing we're using the haze data as an imperfect, but at least something benchmark for our industry.
00:20:32
Speaker
Yeah, and I think you're right. There's a lot more that we don't see behind this data. It's a good start to start tracking and measuring it and making it public, making people aware of it. I think those businesses that didn't have to report, I think it was only companies with 100 employees and more had to report. If you're less than that, we encourage you go ahead and do the exercise anyway. Go ahead and look through what was required for the reporting and do the exercise in your own business.
00:20:59
Speaker
and start to think about addressing some of these issues. It starts with that awareness and then it starts with you taking action around those gaps you see in your own business and closing them.
00:21:09
Speaker
Yeah, well, data is very powerful and I'd absolutely endorse what you've just said, Adele, I think. Regardless of your size, do your gender pay gap data on a quarterly basis because what gets measured gets managed. And if you're conscious of it, you'll be looking to, I hope, improve it so your payment is effectively to your employee's gender blind.
Listener Engagement and Feedback
00:21:37
Speaker
Hey, are you liking listening to our podcast, Recruitment News Australia? If you are, it would really help if you could give Ross Clannan and I a five-star review on whatever podcast app you listen to it on. Please hop onto the review section and give us a review next time you're listening on your favorite episode. And thanks for listening.