COVID-19 has certainly affected the employment scene here in WA. Organisations entering the market to secure new staff appear to have expectations of a wealth of candidates, all competing for a limited number of employment opportunities. Yet, this just isn’t the case as candidates with strong ICT skills/experience have numerous employment opportunities to choose from.

 

Notably, major organisations beyond the realm of WA’s dominant mining-resources sector are also forging ahead with major technology, and even enterprise-wide transformation programs, placing increased demand and pressure in securing top-tier locally-based talent. This ‘candidate-short market’ has re-enforced the “you snooze, you lose!” scenario from an employer’s perspective, as hesitant or lengthy recruitment processes have seen many good candidates lost to alternative opportunities elsewhere. This, coupled with an increase in candidates being retained and counter-offered by their current employer is proving costly from a delivery perspective for numerous organisations.

 

The hesitancy from ‘passive candidates’ to consider new employment opportunities (as a result of the uncertainty caused by COVID-19) has re-enforced the increased demand for job stability in the WA market. While the mighty $ has and always will be a driving influence to attract ‘top talent’, many companies are keeping relevant in the market by updating their policies and offering flexible working hours, opportunities to work from home (WFH), and longer engagement periods (which have been evidenced by an increase in permanent and fixed-term job opportunities. These 3 areas have become priorities for consideration by active job seekers in ICT. Within the Perth CBD, we have certainly seen workers take the opportunity to WFH or engage in flexible or blended WFH models, resulting in less foot traffic.

 

While the WA ICT sector remains resilient, we are seeing an influx of ex-Pats retuning to WA to ‘escape COVID-19’. We are also observing some ICT professionals remain in WA and secure assignments remotely in other ANZ regions. Initially we thought this trend may increase rapidly, but this has not affected the employment market in WA significantly. 

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