With almost one quarter of Australian companies’ now employing temporary or contract staff on a regular ongoing basis, employers have indicated they plan to increase the use of temporary and contract staff in their accountancy and finance departments.
Hays recently released its 2017 Hays Salary Guide based on a survey of more than 2,950 organisations representing 3,021,984 employees, which uncovered some interesting statistics on hiring trends.
The research reveals that 23 per cent of Australian employers now employ temporary or contract staff on a regular ongoing basis, with another 44 per cent employing them for special projects or workloads.
Furthermore, in the next 12 months 23 per cent of employers expect to increase their use of temporary and contract staff, compared to 9 per cent who plan to decrease in this area.
Accountancy and finance departments will be one of the key departments in which employers increase their use of temporaries and contractors, with 12 per cent indicating an increase in this area.
“Highly-skilled temporary and contract staff are certainly becoming the ‘new normal’ in workplaces, creating a blended workforce of temporary and permanent employees who work side-by-side,” said Nick Deligiannis, managing director of Hays.
“Temporary and contract employees fill staffing or knowledge gaps, assist with projects, bring particular expertise that is difficult to find or not required daily, and offer flexibility since they can be released at short notice without financial penalty.”
The use of temporary and contract workers will also rise in 37 per cent of IT departments, 32 per cent of project management and purchasing/procurement departments, 30 per cent of marketing departments, 28 per cent of engineering departments, 25 per cent of operational management departments, 23 per cent of HR departments, and 18 per cent of sales departments.
Mr Deligiannis said that non-routine jobs are also contributing to the increase of temporary roles.
“If we look at the skills in demand, it is professionals who can undertake non-routine work who are seeing the highest job growth. This is likely to continue, with automation and artificial intelligence already beginning to take over manual and repetitive tasks,” Mr Deligiannis said.
“Yes robots and AI are expected to also be used as another tool to help us do our job better, but with automation taking over routine tasks it is knowledge workers who are more likely to be needed in future.”
“By their very nature, temporary and contract employees possess a high level of relevant knowledge. They are experts in their field and come into a workplace to add value immediately. It’s no wonder then that we’re seeing an increase in the use of temporary and contract staff.”
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