Australia’s Prime Minister Julia Gillard has called for Australian companies to plug the nation’s skills gap with local workers, rather than relying on skilled migrants, reports Australia’s ABC News.
Gillard’s comments directly contradict work done this week to attract Irish and Northern Irish workers to the country.
Middlesex University and public sector union FDA have launched a pilot study that will see students from a variety of backgrounds receive mentoring by senior public sector workers, helping them land top graduate jobs.
Unemployment in Australia has fallen from 5.3% in August, a 10-month high, to 5.2% in September, reports the country’s ABC Newsnetwork.
The number of jobs created in September was double the expected rate, and just over half of these 20,400 new jobs were full-time positions.
Firms in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region are increasingly offering health programmes and other benefits to employees in order to attract and retain key talent, a study by HR consultancy Mercer shows.
The survey found that 81% of APAC employers questioned - of which 87% were multinationals - were concerned about the health of their employees.
Construction firm Bouygues Enterprises France-Europe has signed an agreement with recruitment firms Adecco Group, Domitis Network and Randstad, which pledges to improve safety for their personnel working on Bouygues sites.
Bouygues claims the partnership is the first such deal in the French construction sector.
There has been a major increase in the number of doctors and nurses at either end of their career undertaking contract work since 2009, according to a study by umbrella administration company FPS.
While jobseekers can expect a slow start to the year in terms of new jobs and hiring intentions, 31 out of the 41 countries surveyed in the Manpower Employment Outlook Survey show a positive outlook for hiring in the first quarter of 2012.
The US, India and Japan are looking especially positive, according to the survey.
Demand for contract HR staff is down, despite permanent vacancies remaining steady, while demand is strong at technology firms, according to recruitment consultancy Badenoch & Clark.
Permanent salaries in HR were up 0.07% month-on-month in November, with vacancies rising by 0.52%. Contract salaries also rose marginally, by 0.03%, while vacancies dropped by 2.69%.
Green energy supply company SWALEC will open a new £7m training and operational training centre in Treforest in Wales, creating up to 250 jobs, which, a spokesperson for the company tells Recruiter, will include inexperienced hires.
Support services and construction group Interserve is working as a partner of the MoD, Help for Heroes and Royal British Legion-supported Defence Recovery Capability’s (DRC’s) Defence Employment and Opportunities Team.