Rimfire Resources continues to lead the way in supporting Australian agribusiness with the launch of a new index focused specifically on the number of rural jobs being advertised.
With more than three years of jobs data collected, the index provides a robust assessment of the current state of play in Australian agribusiness employment. It shows that there is strong demand for people across all rural job sectors.
Launching the Rimfire Australian Rural Jobs Index, Rimfire Resources Managing Director Mick Hay said the confident outlook across most rural sectors is reflected in the increase in the number of positions available in 2008, but the challenge remains in actually finding people to fill these positions.
The Rimfire Australian Rural Jobs Index is unique because it is the only job tracking report that focuses solely on jobs in the rural sector.
“Agribusiness is vital to our economy. There are broader reports that look at the overall number of job advertisements across the economy, but ours is the only one that looks specifically at jobs in rural industries,” Mr Hay said.
Mr Hay said that underlying the index is a solid base of data, with it having captured every rural job advertised in newspapers and online since August 2005. From this Rimfire is able to track changes in job numbers and types, across rural sectors and across roles within sectors.
“We have purposefully waited until now to launch the Rimfire Australian Rural Jobs Index because it is crucial to have a meaningful data set. With three years of data we can identify trends and patterns historically and on an ongoing basis,” he said.
“In 2007 we saw the number of jobs being advertised drop away which clearly reflected the level of confidence in the rural economy given the impact of the drought.
“The prospect of a good season this year is reflected in a predominance of jobs being advertised in the crop protection, seed, rural merchandise and rural machinery sectors
“In the first half of this year we have seen rural job advertisements return to levels similar to early 2006, with 9,767 jobs advertised - a 9 per cent increase in total advertisements compared to the first half of last year and even surpassing 2006 by around 2 per cent,” Mr Hay said.
Interestingly said Mr Hay, the mix of adverts is changing with more companies now using the internet to advertise along with traditional news paper adverts.
The number of jobs advertised online has risen by more than 60 per cent since 2006, with 2,920 jobs advertised online in the first half of this year compared to the first half of 2006.
“Internet advertisements now consistently account for one third and one half of all rural jobs advertised and the Rimfire Rural Jobs Index shows that employers tend to advertise more in the first quarter of the year which reflects the production cycle in many industries,” he said.
Mr Hay said that the Rimfire Rural Jobs Index covers all areas of agribusiness from animal health and nutrition, risk management, crop protection, finance, merchandise, manufacturing, government and production.
“The predominance of roles advertised is still production based. In the case of newspaper advertising we are still seeing around 60 per cent of adverts being for permanent production roles.
“When we look to the Internet however, there are less production roles – about 30-40 per cent of all ads with more crop protection (11 per cent), rural merchandise (5.6 per cent) and industry groups (9.4 per cent) advertising roles.”
The sector split of roles being advertised also varies over the course of a year. For example the number of roles being advertised in rural merchandise sales accounted for 3 per cent of all roles advertised in the first quarter of 2008, but rose to account for 28 per cent of all roles advertised in the 2nd quarter of this year. Similarly the predominance of roles in the seed and biotech sector jumped sharply in the 2nd quarter of this year.
Mr Hay said the Rimfire Rural Jobs Index could also provide insight into changes or emerging trends in the agribusiness sector before they become apparent elsewhere.
“Often the employment decisions being made in a sector can telegraph forthcoming change and so we are seeing an upswing in the number of commodity trading positions being advertised, possibly as a prelude to further deregulation in the grain industry,” he said.
Since data collection began there has been a trend increase in the overall number of rural jobs advertised, both in newspapers and online.
“While the number of actual advertisements tends to be higher in the first quarter, overall numbers are also tending higher in all quarters which suggests that rural employers are continuing to find it difficult to fill roles, consistent with the view that there is a shortage of skills in Australian agribusiness,” said Mr Hay.
“The competition for labour is extremely fierce and the Rimfire Rural Jobs Index clearly shows that rural businesses continue to demand people, but that demand cannot be fully met,” he said.
Other highlights from the first Rural Jobs Index include:
• In Crop Protection, the predominance of job adverts now occur online with the overall number of jobs advertised in the first half of 2008 almost the same as last year.
• The number of rural merchandise jobs advertised in the first half of this year is 16.8 per cent lower than for the same time last year.
• The number of permanent production roles dominates the total number of rural jobs advertised with 5,320 jobs advertised in print and online in the first six months of 2008, compared to 4,875 jobs in the same period last year.
Mr Hay said that the Rimfire Rural Jobs Index would continue to track all agribusiness jobs advertised in Australia, with results issued quarterly in May, August, November and February.
“Australian agribusiness makes a vital contribution to our economy. By tracking rural job advertisements we can provide valuable insight into the general health of the rural economy,” he said.
For more information in the first instance, contact Emma Suttor at Rimfire’s Brisbane office on 07 3876 5567 or via email: esuttor@rimfireresources.com.au