It’s human nature to shun the unknown, so when the ‘r word’ (redundancy) is spoken, it can send fear into even the most stoic of hearts. Yet statistically speaking, either you or someone you know will either be fired or made redundant at some point in your career.
It’s a tough economy out there and right now, the job market is incredibly tight. Australia’s work participation rate has increased to 67.1% despite unemployment climbing to 4.2%. According to the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, 554 businesses reported to Services Australia that 33,925 positions were made redundant between January 2023 and March of this year. And this doesn’t include all redundancies, as employers are only required to report redundancies to Services Australia when more than 15 employees are made redundant at a time.
Large corporations and small businesses alike are shedding large numbers of staff particularly in tech, the public service, and consulting firms. The facts paint a grim picture, but the upside is for every company laying off workers, another company gains the opportunity to snap up star talent.
In boom times these businesses might have struggled to compete with their well-resourced counterparts to hire prize employees, but now they are finally getting the chance to choose from a bigger line-up — and the candidates are particularly eager to impress. We are currently living through the highest jobless rate since January 2022, with an estimated 608,000 unemployed and 1.6 million underemployed people in Australia right now.
Among these are workers who are resilient, highly skilled, motivated, and ready to jump back into the game straight away. Businesses on the lookout for candidates to hit the ground running stand to benefit by filling positions from this pool of available workers. Not only do they save on the considerable costs of hiring and indoctrinating new employees, but they’re also able to run their businesses with minimal disruption.
On average it takes companies an estimated $20,000 and 18 days to recruit a worker to fill a position in 2024. Between recruiting agencies and paying for platforms like Seek and LinkedIn, businesses are losing out on lost income and productivity every day they operate understaffed. Although it may be tempting to keep teams as lean as possible in an environment where the cost of doing business is astronomical, companies lose out on the opportunity to tap into their employee brain trust.
Moreover, studies show understaffing affects employee performance and morale which in turn translates to lower profitability. Gone too is their capacity to innovate, let alone operate at maximum efficiency. A recent report on the global workforce indicates Australian employees are grappling with stress and burnout at significantly higher levels compared to their global counterparts. This unspoken crisis is being compounded by the high level of stress and fear workers face as the jobless rate continues to climb.
What both parties have in common is a lack of time and a desire to find and fill a new job quickly, but the current way the hiring process works isn’t fit for purpose in a modern job market. Those who have been made redundant don’t need six rounds of interviews only to not be told they have not progressed to the next stage. Neither do employers have the time to sift through stacks of cookie-cutter resumes to find the most relevant candidates. There needs to be an overhaul of the job application process to make it more compassionate, efficient, and personal.
The obvious solution is to employ technology to speed things up. Job seekers who find it hard to get their foot in the door and are keen to hit the ground running in their next role can showcase their personality and qualifications through brief pre-recorded videos. Employers on the other hand can check out the presentation, communication style, and vibe of a candidate in a matter of minutes before moving forward to place interviews. They can filter applicants quickly by using knock-out questions.
A job search platform that connects workers with businesses to empower and support those who have been made redundant is the game-changer we all need when the job market gets tough. Most importantly, it puts the power back into job-seekers’ hands so they can bounce back faster after experiencing the emotional toll of job loss.
In our push to normalise redundancy and job loss, we need to change the hiring processes of the future and start to prioritise holistic health, wellbeing, and overall job satisfaction. Only then can we begin to transform the way we see redundancy — as an exciting opportunity to launch the next phase of your career over the loss of a role that is no longer needed.
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