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2026 Episode 145 - What did Adele learn from her trip to India?
37 Plays5 hours ago
RNA episode 145: The first full episode for 2026 includes the latest news for 28 January 2026 featuring Adecco, Astute Payroll, Hays ANZ, Robert Walters, and the December labour market update from the ABS. Question of the week ;s "What did Adele learn from her first trip to India?"
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Transcript
Introduction and Sponsor
00:00:08
Speaker
Welcome to Recruitment News Australia 2026. This episode is brought to you by Wingman Recruitment, the offshoring partner built by recruiters for recruiters.
00:00:19
Speaker
Powered by H-People and the Wingman Group, Wingman Recruitment helps agencies reclaim their time by shifting admin compliance and sourcing to highly skilled remote professionals. That means your consultants can focus on what really matters, relationships, results and placements.
00:00:35
Speaker
Learn more at wingmangroup.com.au via the services tab. This is the news
Leadership Changes at Adeco
00:00:41
Speaker
for the January, 2026. I'm Adele
00:00:45
Speaker
And I'm Ross Klenit. Peter Aitchison has resigned from his role as the Deco Senior Vice President and Country Manager for Australia and New Zealand. Aitchison joined Adeco in October 2024, replacing Nicholas Lee, who'd been in the role for 20 months. Aitchison's departure was announced to the business last week.
00:01:04
Speaker
It's not known what Adeco's plans are to replace him. Aitchison was Adeco's sixth ANZ CEO in the past 10 years. Atchison intends to seek another CEO role in the local recruitment industry, telling R&A he still felt energised by the challenges of the sector.
Legal Troubles of Lee Lachlan
00:01:22
Speaker
A former recruitment agency owner has been charged with the murder of his partner in 2025. The co-founder and former director of Sydney recruitment agency Lead Group, 44-year-old Lee Lachlan, has been charged with murder after the death of 38-year-old Claire Austin last year.
00:01:40
Speaker
Witnesses report Austin was arguing with her partner in Sydney's eastern suburbs on the night of the 12th of April 2025 and subsequently suffered a severe laceration to her arm after attempting to force her way through a sliding door at her home.
00:01:54
Speaker
She was treated by paramedics and taken to St Vincent's Hospital in a critical condition, however she died three days later. Police allege Lachlan told investigators he had been drinking at a local pub in the hours leading up to the incident.
00:02:07
Speaker
New South Wales Police submitted an apprehended violence order against Lachlan on Austin's behalf and it was due to be heard at Waverley Local Court in the week following her death. On Thursday 6 November 2025, New South Wales Police arrested Lachlan and later charged him with murder and abusive behaviour towards an intimate partner called coercive control.
00:02:28
Speaker
Lachlan did not apply for bail and no plea has been entered. Lachlan immigrated from the yeah UK in 2013, co-founded the lead group in 2019, and co-founded hospitality recruitment video platform Vidora. Claire Austin was born in the UK but had lived in Australia for the past decade.
Remembering Nicholas Beams
00:02:45
Speaker
The Stu Payroll founder and former CEO, Nicholas Beams, passed away two weeks ago, aged 50. Beams' his's recruitment career started in London in the late 1990s before returning to Australia, where he subsequently worked at Smalls & Associates, now Spinifex Recruiting, Freeman Adams, Julia Ross and Morgan Consulting.
00:03:06
Speaker
Astute Payroll started life as Aspire Human Capital Management, a Melbourne-based recruitment agency founded by Beams and David Matthews in 2006. A trademark dispute over the Aspire brand had the business changed its name to Astute People Solutions.
00:03:21
Speaker
Matthews left the business in mid-2008 and the following year, Marcus Webb joined as product director and co-founder of the new technology company as the recruitment side of the business was closed. Beams published a book in 2011, Different Thinking, an update of the concept pioneered in Australia 10 years earlier by Tony Hall in his book, first interview success secrets of Australia's top recruiters.
00:03:44
Speaker
Astute payroll rose at the perfect moment as recruitment agencies and labour hire firms moved away from outdated paper timesheets to more efficient digital solutions. The company's rapid growth earned consistent public recognition, including the Consensus Software Award in 2012 and five consecutive BRW Fast 100 Awards between 2000 2009. and 2014. Culminating in founders, Beams and Webb being named to BRW's list of Australia's wealthiest self-made people under 40 in 2014 with an estimated net worth of $25 million. dollars
00:04:20
Speaker
Beams' departure from Astute in late 2016 to pursue other career and business opportunities was both unexpected and never fully explained publicly. In the years after leaving Astute, Beams continued his entrepreneurial ventures founding Sammy Insurance and rounded an accounting software platform for freelancers and sole traders. Sadly, Beams' health declined over the past few years as he succumbed to hereditary addiction issues. The cause of his death has not been released.
00:04:51
Speaker
Nicholas Beams is survived by his wife Claire and three sons.
Australia's Employment Landscape
00:04:55
Speaker
On to the latest employment data where the ABS numbers reported a solid finish to the year. Australia's unemployment rate edged down to 4.1% in December from 4.3% the month before.
00:05:06
Speaker
What really stood out was strength in hiring. Unemployment jumped by 65,200 in the month, full-time jobs doing most of the heavy lifting there, up by almost 55,000 roles.
00:05:19
Speaker
Part-time employment also rose, but this was very much a full-time story. The number of unemployed Australians dropped by close to 30,000, and participation increased, which tells us that more people are joining the workforce than are leaving it.
00:05:34
Speaker
And good news for younger workers here. ABS pointed out that 15 to 24-year-olds were a key driver with more young people moving into employment. Other good news was in total hours work for the month. It hit a record high for the whole workforce, over 2 billion hours recorded for the very first time.
00:05:55
Speaker
That is huge. Underutilisation also improved down to 9.8%, which means fewer people are unemployed and fewer people are stuck wanting more hours.
00:06:07
Speaker
When we flip over to job ads, slightly different story. Seek data shows job ads fell 1.2% month on month in December and were down 3.5% year on year.
00:06:20
Speaker
Which isn't a shock for December, but Seek did say the slowdown was a bit sharper than usual heading into Christmas. Every state saw declines with the ACT and Northern Territory taking the biggest annual hits, while Queensland and WA held up a bit better.
00:06:35
Speaker
The JSA Internet Vacancy Index told a slightly different story. They reported a 3.2% increase in online job ads in December, with managers and professionals leading the way, and by region, the ACT reported the greatest gains in job ads.
00:06:54
Speaker
So it really depends where you're looking. But when we zoom out to actual vacancies, ABS data shows total job vacancies dip slightly in the November quarter to 326,700 with private sector demand easing while public sector vacancies rose nearly 9% over the year.
00:07:12
Speaker
Education and training saw the sharpest quarterly drop while on the upside manufacturing was the standout with vacancies there up more than 30% year year.
00:07:24
Speaker
So overall, the Australian labour market finished the year on a high with December's job gains nearly four times the monthly average of the whole year and job ads rising. The best news was for people seeking full-time roles and for younger workers seeking more hours.
Recruitment Industry Financials
00:07:40
Speaker
The market is showing more optimistic signs, Adele, but it is only one month's data. Let's see what January's ABS figures produce when they are released on the 19th of February.
00:07:53
Speaker
Now moving on to company results. Hayes ANZ reported a 1% decline in net fees for the December 2025 quarter, with activity improving as the quarter progressed. Temp and contracting fees fell 3% year-on-year, while PERM fees rose 2%, returning to positive year-on-year growth for the first time since the first quarter of 2022.
00:08:17
Speaker
Private sector net fees were up by 2%, while there was a 6% year-on-year decline in public sector net fees. By region, New South Wales and Victoria were down by 3% and 2% respectively, with WA the only region to report a year-on-year increase up by 13%.
00:08:36
Speaker
By specialism, construction and property, 20% of Hayzane's ED net fees and off support, both increased by 1%. IT and accountancy and finance were flat, while consultant headcount in the region fell 1% in the quarter and 10% year-on-year.
00:08:53
Speaker
Page Group Australia reported a flat first quarter result, the first quarter with no year-on-year decline since 2022. Overall fee earner headcount in the region remained stable.
00:09:04
Speaker
And London-listed Robert Walters reported that fourth quarter 2025 net fee income for its Asia-Pacific region declined by 12% ยฃ28.5 million. pounds Australia was down while New Zealand was up group
00:09:28
Speaker
They're all by 4% quarter on quarter and 15% year on year. Australia's largest education recruitment company, ANZ UK Education, has completed the acquisition of England-based Apple a Day Supply.
00:09:43
Speaker
Founder and Director of Apple a Day Supply, Gemma Edgar, established the business in 2013, having been a teacher for just under three years.
ANZ UK Education's Acquisition
00:09:52
Speaker
According to the company's website, Apple a Day Supply has eight employees, including Edgar and co-owner Ashley Salmon. Edgar will remain with the business in a new role as ANZ UK's UK South West Regional Manager, bringing together Apple a Day Supply and ANZ UK's Bristol and Wales offices.
00:10:10
Speaker
ANZ UK Education was founded in 2004 by Daniel Mundy and currently has close to 500 employees, providing casual relief and permanent teaching staff across Australia, and and in the United States through their fully-owned subsidiary, Scoot Education. Adele, new research from LinkedIn just out shows recruiters are really feeling the pressure right now.
Recruitment Challenges on LinkedIn
00:10:32
Speaker
66% recruiters globally say it's becoming harder to find qualified talent over the past year. And that lines up with what we're seeing on the ground, Ross. The study, which surveyed more than 6,500 HR professionals worldwide, also found 42% are under increasing pressure to fill roles faster.
00:10:51
Speaker
It's not just speed as well. 39% of recruiters say they're being pushed to uncover the so-called hidden gem candidates as well. What's interesting is candidates are feeling it too. Around 65% of job seekers said finding a job has become more challenging, mainly due to increased competition.
00:11:11
Speaker
Add in the uncertainty around Gen AI's impact on jobs, the increased expectations of hiring managers, and you've got pressure on both sides of the hiring equation. I mean, this explains why recruiters are working harder than ever and are taking longer fill jobs, while candidates are applying for more jobs, gaining less feedback and winning fewer interviews than ever before.
Adele's Journey to India
00:11:33
Speaker
And that's your news up to today for the 28th of January, 2026. Stay tuned now for Question of the Week.
00:11:48
Speaker
Welcome to the first ah RNA question of the week for 2026. And the question is, what did Adele learn from visiting India for the very first time?
00:12:00
Speaker
Yeah, so many of our listeners will know that I have Indian heritage. I have an Indian background, but I myself had never visited India. And this was a first time trip for me. And I went back with some members of my family. So i went back with my mother and my two sisters. And so we travelled, just the four of us, through India and actually at the end I also came back through China. And I found the whole trip quite surprising.
00:12:28
Speaker
Okay. Hang on, hang on, hang on. Okay. So firstly, some context. So did your were both your parents born in India and then did they move to Australia? And were your sisters born in India or were they born in Australia?
00:12:42
Speaker
So myself and my two sisters were all born in Australia, although one was made in India, but born in Australia. and both my parents were born in India, but I am what they consider Anglo-Indian, which means that I have a grandparent from both sides that was not Indian. So i have one grandparent who was Indian and one that was Dutch-Indonesian, just to throw another mix in there. But only one of my parents was from India, one one of my grandparents was from India, and one was a British or British descendant. So i am a mix of Indian and and English.
00:13:22
Speaker
Okay. what was the reason for going to India with your family now? Was it just kind of almost spur of the moment we should go back or was there a particular reason that you were going?
00:13:34
Speaker
Well, my mother has travelled back since migrating. She's been back to India several times. And my sisters and I spoke about going back over many years, but we always wanted to go with mum or dad. um In this case, we had the opportunity to go with mum. And so it was an opportunity to go back with our parents to show us, I guess, the country through their eyes, to be able to see things that they wanted us to see rather than just going as a regular tourist.
00:14:03
Speaker
What were your expectations before going and then how did that align or not align with the reality of your experience?
00:14:15
Speaker
I had actually set my expectations really low and it sounds terrible, but I really didn't want to be disappointed because i was going with mum and because I wanted to be able to appreciate where she had come from and ultimately where I have come from really I tried to set really low expectations. We travelled and landed initially in Delhi, which is the easiest airport to arrive in India, and we had a look around Delhi. But we did go to Kolkata, which is where my mother grew up, and that's not a city that many tourists visit, I'll say, and it's not um it's not somewhere I really wanted to go. we went there solely just to visit mum's old neighbourhood. In fact, we went to her house where she grew up as well.
00:14:58
Speaker
Wow. What was it about Calcutta that has not many tourists go? And then what was your experience of it? It's one of those, you know, it's a major city, you know, it's in the north of India. But but when you compete with Delhi, you know, Delhi's the capital and that's problem and and all the flights go mostly go in and out of Delhi. So i think Calcutta one of those destination cities you'd have to want to go to. You have to make an effort to go to. It's not on the normal tourist trail.
00:15:28
Speaker
I think it is ah my expectation was that it was going to be quite backward, I suppose. It was going to be, um you know, not as advanced as a city. I expected Delhi to, you know, be its capital and I expected Kolkata to be, you know a second you know, second cousin kind of city. And as I said, because it didn't attract a lot of tourists, I didn't expect it to be um very well, you know, accommodating, let's say, for tourists. And I was very surprised, pleasantly surprised. In fact, Calcutta was quite a city. Calcutta had really good infrastructure. In some ways, it was far more commercial than Delhi. It had a real vibe to it. If anything, I could probably um describe Calcutta as a bit more like Melbourne, I suppose, in terms of, you know, a different food scene and a different shopping and scene and It it just was edgier. It just had a really different feel to any of the other cities that that I visited in India.
00:16:29
Speaker
Right. And, of course, kind of an obvious question from me is, did you get immediately recognised as tourists? I mean, I'd imagine from a physical appearance point of view, you're not too dissimilar to the locals, but do you stand out or No.
00:16:47
Speaker
This was an interesting one for me, actually, personally. i believe they they knew straight away that we were tourists. Obviously, we're in Western clothing and ah that would probably be the most obvious thing that we, you know, we would stand out as tourists to them by the way we dressed, in fact.
00:17:05
Speaker
But there was quite a lot of staring that happened for me personally. And I think it had to do with my hair. a lot of people stopped and looked at my hair and they were very confused.
00:17:15
Speaker
ah Those of you have known me or have seen me, look up my my photo. i have ah white hair. i have naturally greyed hair, white hair, um particularly at the front of my hair. And i think that's a very unusual thing for somebody who isn't ah really old in India. I think, you know, only people who are 80 years plus seem to have white hair and they were very confused by me. They were sort of looking and I'd see people looking twice and really staring at us.
Cultural Observations in India
00:17:44
Speaker
um i have a sister who's very fair skinned and so, but she has dark hair. And so they were looking at her quite a lot as well because they were just amazed at how fair her skin was. So I think It was obvious to them that we weren't local, but they were very intrigued by us, let's say. And what about the traditional things that people say about India?
00:18:06
Speaker
The smells, the crowds, the noise? Interestingly, those are the things that made it really exciting, in fact. I think ah certainly, you know, the really large number of people, um i think, you Calcutta is something like 15 million people in one city. So, you know, just having that that throng, that buzz of people always, you know, day, night, 24 hours a day, that city is is buzzing.
00:18:35
Speaker
um i didn't notice a lot of smell. And that's a funny thing. I don't know if that's when you're there because ah one of my sister, my sister um who lives in America, she left ah yeah a couple of days before us. And she got home early and then she called us and said, when you get home, you'll have to wash everything in your suitcase. You won't realise it, but it all stinks. And I didn't notice that. but So when you're there, I don't think it's as noticeable. There's certainly elements where it is very poor and there is, you know, sewage, you know, smell and and in the street and that kind of stuff. There's cows everywhere as everybody would possibly know and expect. So, you know, there's, you know, cow pats on the road and So there is a smell. There's no doubt about it. Is it offensive? Is it unbearable? I didn't honestly notice it. It wasn't something that put me off at all. And the buzz of people and the movement of the city and um the crazy traffic and just everything about it added to the excitement actually of the city.
00:19:32
Speaker
As someone of Indian heritage but has never been there, did you feel a connection? Did you did it kind of feel like a sort of homely connection or not?
00:19:43
Speaker
Look, the the food is familiar and that I think helps. You know, we're trying things that we've heard of, although there were a lot of ah dishes that we hadn't heard of. and we were saying to mum, hey, how come you've never made this before? What's going on? You know, and we were questioning why she, you know, omitted dishes from it from the repertoire coming to Australia. But look, the food was familiar. um Obviously, the faces were familiar. it was confronting going back to mum's house where she grew up. She came from a family.
00:20:10
Speaker
ah She has um five brothers and sisters, so six with her and her parents. So there was eight of them in the family and they lived in a two-room house, not two-bedroom, two rooms. Wow. so one room at the front, one room at the back, um kitchen outside. It was confronting to see just how poor that house was and that area. It was a slum-ish sort of area, but they lived well because it was a house, actually. It had walls and it had a roof. It wasn't, you know, it wasn't a shack, but it was a very poor area.
00:20:40
Speaker
There was still a family of about eight living in that house, and they allowed us to actually go in and we met with them and wow and interacted and found out a little bit about their lives. And um surprisingly, my parent my mum's family lived there for 20 years, and that family's now lived there for 20 years. wow so it ah It was yeah confronting to see that, to know how we live and to see just, I guess, how happy they are and content and and they don't know any different. They don't understand anything outside of what they've got. They're happy with their lot in life. but And what about work? I mean, you spent your whole life in around the recruitment industry and no doubt you were...
00:21:18
Speaker
thinking about the experience of people doing jobs and the whole employment situation in India and no doubt either consciously or unconsciously comparing it to Australia. So any things that are front of mind with respect to that?
00:21:37
Speaker
I was thinking about the cultures in fact and and I did mention I came back through China as well and so I visited, i guess, the two most populated countries in the world, china followed India followed by China. And i was observing the people and the culture of the people in both countries.
00:21:54
Speaker
And also because there's a large population of both of those countries in Australia, right? There's a large population of Indian migrants here and Chinese migrants. And I was trying to compare the differences. And I found that the Indian, cultural culturally Indian people, not dissimilar as they are in Australia, were keen to please. They were keen to to offer any assistance that they could. They were clean keen to help um and say yes all the time. And I think that's probably something that a lot of employers will recognise as common here as well. And that is cultural. So I think Australians may need to be aware of that, that that is how they naturally are brought up to be that way.
00:22:34
Speaker
china Chinese people seemed a little more independent. they They didn't have as much of that need to kind of please or to to say yes. They seem to be They seem to be able to kind of do their own thing a little more. I found a lot of young people, probably, you know, that 15 to 24-year-old age bracket, I saw the most number of people, particularly in China. A lot of people um are very young. and But it just kind of reminded me how hard it must be to navigate, you know, being out of your comfort zone in a job market. You know, like I was there temporarily as a tourist. I was out of my comfort zone. you know, even simple things like asking to go to the toilet or ordering food, you know, you have to adapt your ways of doing things. um In China, i mean, I went into, main I went to Hong Kong and I went to mainland China as well. People were not, they didn't speak English at all, like not even a hint. I couldn't even order food.
00:23:25
Speaker
So, you know, being in that kind of environment, you know, just want to order your dinner and you can't do that normally. You can't do that easily. You have to kind of adapt and adjust your communication to get what you want. I was just doing that temporarily as a tourist.
00:23:40
Speaker
It reminded me how incredibly hard that must be for people migrating to another country and having to navigate that for a job, right? Having to get across all of their strengths in a role or what their skills are in a role with language as a barrier but culture as a barrier and being nervous in a job situation. It just, it really hit home for me. that I wanted to kind of pass that message on, I think, to Australian employers and recruiters to really go back and think about that. If you are a migrant or you come from a migrant family, I want you to remind yourself about how hard it really is and and take that flashback. And if you're not and you're an Australian, just think about that for a minute. Think about how hard that must be for someone to come from another country and have to navigate all of those things whilst
00:24:27
Speaker
you know putting making their best impression for a job. That's really well said. So to close it out, what was the thing perhaps you didn't really think about that you experience or have in Australia that you particularly now appreciate having been away for three weeks in India and China and are now back?
Reflections Post-Trip and Future Plans
00:24:46
Speaker
Well, I think it's the creature comforts. um you know Recording this in some very hot weather in Melbourne this week, um some of the hottest weather Melbourne's seen, being able to have the creature comforts of things like air conditioning and, you know, heating, cooling. In fact, actually in Delhi while we were there, was very cool. So i was ill prepared for that, but was able to just go out and buy myself a jacket, you know, that's not possible for everybody. So i think just living the lifestyle that we have in Australia where the vast majority of us live a relatively, you know, mid-level, you know, lifestyle, none of us um are in, you know, that situation where we can't have what we need, I'm very appreciative of that and i also want to look at how I can help more than I already have done um previously in in perhaps you know engaging people from other countries who have made it to Australia and try and help out with ways to you know pathways to employment for them here. And are you going to return to India anytime soon?
00:25:47
Speaker
Oh, yeah, and definitely Calcutta. like The city is a vibe.