Gerard Daniels executive search general manager, Petra Nelson, told Energyreview.net the state needed to be marketed as the ‘location of choice’ for those in the sectors worldwide.
Approaches recently made to leading members of government and industry to market the state to graduates, technicians and professionals already in the industries internationally had been received positively, Nelson said.
The Department of Immigration also needed to be involved, she said.
EnergyReview.net understands the campaign in Aberdeen, London, Calgary and the Middle East would use the state’s lifestyle, location and technical excellence as attractions.
People from these international locations would augument a labour market that did not have a critical mass to produce enough employees in the face of sustained growth.
“It’s one strategy which also includes increasing training and the number of graduates. But in terms of time you can’t simply turn around [the shortages] in time for train 5 [of the North West Shelf],” Nelson said.
Woodside needs up to 1500 workers for the $2 billion construction of its fifth liquefied natural gas train in the state’s north. The company is also one of Gerard Daniels’ clients, along with ChevronTexaco and BHP Billiton.
According to the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics, 229 advanced energy projects are currently proposed nationally, while 58% of Australia’s workforce is aged over 45.
Across the nation, there is a dwindling pool of employees with a record 4.1% growth in professional positions, with blue collar openings increasing 1.8%, in the 12 months until May, according to the Australia Bureau of Statistics.
As a result, in the past 12 months, 37% of the positions advertised locally by Gerard Daniels have eventually gone to overseas professionals mostly from the UK and Canada, despite the employers asking Australian applications to be a priority, Nelson said
West Australian state director of the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (DIMIA), Jose Alvarez, said he would be part of any “constructive” meeting about the shortages.
During the past nine months, the department had met with members of the gas and oil industries, including Woodside, but the fifth train’s operator had not made any specific requests about labour needs for the project, he said.
“There are a range of skills shortages across various industries, but our visas aren’t broken down into particular sectors. Our role is to assist them [companies] in bringing people in,” Alvarez said.
The most popular visa allowed temporary residency for two to four years, but after 24 months the worker could apply for permanent residency.
WA minister for energy, Alan Carpenter, is currently in the US and was unavailable to comment for a week, a spokeswoman said.
