NewsHIGH STANDARDS REQUIRED TO ENSURE CASUAL WORKFORCE QUALITYDecember 2006 Labour hire firm Advance Recruitments says that despite the skills shortage in Australia, employee standards cannot be compromised in the pursuit of maintaining a high quality casual workforce that industrial businesses across the nation have become reliant upon. "Statistics leave no doubt that Australia has entered a new phase in the development of its workforce. Productivity across the board is under threat if Australian business can't find a way to match labour supply with the growing demands of the Australian economy," says Sascha Charlton, Managing Director at Advance Recruitments. "The major ways one can address this issue is education and training, the use of technology, and the migration to Australia of skilled labour." Australia is currently experiencing a serious skills shortage across many industries, primarily due to the ageing population and retirement rates, as well as shortfalls in numbers of skilled workers currently being trained. Deloitte Research/UN Population Division figures indicate that where the Australian workforce (age 15-64) will have grown by 75% between the years 1970-2010, it will grow by just 7.5% across the period 2010-2050. This is corroborated by ABS data revealing that on current projections, while 170,000 new workers entered the workforce in Australia in 2005, just 17,000 new workers will enter the workforce by 2032. "Advance Recruitments has a recruitment process that ensures we employ the very best casual workers in the Australian market," says Ms. Charlton. "This has been developed over many years, and we continue to refine the process to make sure we fully understand the skills, attitudes, and capability of our applicants before making a final decision on their recruitment to our firm." Key elements of this screening process include one-on-one interviews, psychometric testing, a thorough understanding of employment history, skills tests for the specific area in which the applicant is offering services, proper authority to work in Australia, Australian Federal Police checks, RTA reports and long range blood alcohol readings, a health profile and medical assessment, reference checks, attitude assessment, and Occupational Health & Safety inductions. "Advance commits to this process each and every time, and while it can be time consuming, the pay off is in the quality of the casual employees that Advance Recruitments delivers to clients," says Ms. Charlton. While Advance Recruitments will maintain its commitment to education and training of Australian workers, it will not rule out the possibility of recruiting overseas talent if the business demand exceeds the supply of quality Australian labour. Advance Recruitments uses technology wherever practicable to provide improved services to clients or to assist in the more efficient processing of administrative tasks.
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Employee Profile: Darren Hope
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30-year-old Darren Hope has been working for Advance Recruitments for less than a year, but he’s already earned himself a reputation for reliability. “Darren is a true ‘on-call casual’,” says Operations Manager Karen Ellis. “He works at a number of different sites but always accepts shifts regardless of what time and where.”