What recent news really means for engineering jobs in Australia

Iron Ore price may have jumped, but the  big picture 

offers less cause for confidence. 

Recent surges in iron ore prices may be a comfort to some, but before anyone starts getting too excited, they should look to the wider view and the inevitability of long term decline in need from China.

This month the news is good. A 6.7% jump resulting from news of approvals in Chinese Infrastructure projects. It’s enough to put the price back over $100 a tonne, which though well short of the $150 high, is at least over the recent $90 level.

There remains however, an inevitable truth to be faced. China’s economy is shifting. As the Chinese population starts to consume more of its own products, rather than relying on external markets for exports, its need for steel and the raw materials used to produce it, will drop and drop.

Steel futures in Shanghai are dropping as we speak. While China continues to overproduce steel, the $150bn in approved projects will not be enough to build confidence in future need. Only cuts in production at Chinese steel mills will stabilize the price.

But in a market that’s seriously fragmented who’s going to do that? Who’s going to compromise their market share? And what are the state run facilities going to do about the jobs it will cost? The answer is that everyone is going to hope for a solution somewhere else in the supply chain.

Today Fortescue will ask lenders to waive debt covenants. As the world’s fourth largest iron ore producer, the company is suffering severely from the weak demand in China, its largest market. Fortescue has avoided raising equity capital, hoping instead for a rebound in commodity prices.  

Meanwhile, confusion reigns in India. In Goa, ‘serious illegalities and irregularities’ in mining operations have led to a freeze in production, as New Delhi continues to seek drops in exports to fulfill domestic need. India’s exports to China have dropped significantly – by 40% April - June.

So what does all this mean for the Australia mining job market? Time will tell, but the outlook is not immediately positive. It is the demand for minerals that has protected the Australian economy from the worst of the global financial crisis. But the fall in commodity prices, the closure of mines and - most significantly for engineers – the postponement and cancellation of expansion plans, will start to pull this protective blanket off the national economy.

The good news is that not everything is about mining projects.  Demand for engineers on LNG projects remains strong and our clients have continued to seek talent for ongoing expansion. As one door closes another one opens.

But there is a truth to face here – China will not be the magical bodyguard of the Australian economy forever. 

Qatar rail jobs represent great opportunities for Australian engineers

The first contracts for one of the largest engineering jobs in Qatar in recent years were awarded this week and the news is a reminder to Australian engineers that rail projects in Qatar will deliver a great many engineering job opportunities.

In all US$36bn of contracts will be awarded as Qatar seeks to transform its rail infrastructure in the run up to the FIFA World Cup in 2022.

Egis Rail and Jacobs are among the early winners, taking the project management and engineering contracts for the red and gold lines. Hill will manage the third green line.

Leighton, who have the contract to build a battery operated tram system to move students around Doha Education city, are hopeful that this role will open up opportunities on the main Doha Metro.

Elsewhere in Qatar, Lusail City’s light-rail transit system is expected to be finished in August 2016

Rail forms a key element of a massive expansion in Qatar. Construction activity involves four central projects: those planned for the World Cup; the $11bn Doha Airport (in two sections from 2012 to 2015.) Thirdly, $8bn Doha Port, to be completed in 2016 for phase one, with total completion in 2030.

All this is in addition to the $25bn of rail expenditure.

Across the GCC region, rail projects are plentiful. In Saudi, Construction has begun on the first high speed passenger line between Makkah and Madinah which is expected to be complete by January 2014. New railway and expansion rail jobs currently in process in the kingdom include North-South Rail, the Land-bridge Project (between Riyadh and Jeddah), and the GCC Railway, which is set to connect the six GCC members - Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, and Saudi Arabia, and Oman.

75% of Qatar’s revenues for this investment  come from it’s oil and gas sales, bolstered of late by increases in LNG exports, the revenues of which will leave the country with a comfortable budget surplus, regardless of their plans for all of this additional sustained expenditure.

All of this paints a fairly clear picture: if you’re thinking of an expat life style but you had ruled out the Middle East (based on perceptions of what it would be like to work in the region) you should take another look at Qatar.

Qatar plays host to large numbers of Commonwealth expats; and growing numbers of foreigners are working in Qatar to save money in the tax-free environment, and maintain a standard of living and wealth comparable to home. The kicker? Qatar has the highest per capita income in the world.

What’s not to like?


See immediate open Qatar Rail jobs.

As our immigration debate rages, cooler heads look to the UK

The UK engineering media is buzzing with Australia stories. The word is out that we are the hot ticket for British workers looking for lucrative Australia engineering jobs.

Immigration remains a sensitive issue for a lot of Australians. It’s easy to understand why, given the speed at which the population is evolving. Last year’s census revealed that there are now 21.7m people in Australia, which is a 9% increase from the 2006 figures.

2011 census data shows a steep climb
in immigration

This week we’ve seen the perils of illegal immigration and the tragic risks to which people are prepared to expose themselves to get here. This is a serious discussion and it’s happening in parliament as we speak; it’s beyond my pay grade and I’ll leave it to the people best placed to resolve the many issues associated with it.

Let’s talk about a different kind of immigration; let’s talk about white collar workers, those with advanced, critical skills and where we’re going to find them.  

We all know the background. Massive increases in demand for our natural resources from fast-growing economies with substantial populations are creating tremendous urgency to develop the infrastructure that can help meet demand. We have the buyers, we have the product; the hard part is finding the engineering professionals to get the job done.

The solution lies in bringing in contract workers on long term assignments and ensuring that the skills we bring into Australia temporarily remain here permanently through training and engagement.

We’ve never had such strong opportunities to attract engineers from the UK for example. Our brand as a country of opportunity is growing there more than ever. Every economy in the world is either suffering, or recovering from, a major financial crisis. Australia, in the eyes of the technical world, is boom town.

In my years working in London, I never encountered this degree of interest coming from all areas of the UK market. It’s time to take advantage of this; it’s in the long term interests of the Australian economy. The British represent the best source of long term temporary workers we’ve got. They are one of the world’s most mobile populations in professional terms, there are no language issues and there are cultural synergies that make every stage of the process easier.

If this is not a major target for you as a recruiting organization, it needs to be. It’s a very good idea to have a specific staffing strategy right now. There’s a lot of competition for these skills and there’s a limited talent pool anyway (as there is in every area of global engineering.)

If you’re a British engineer potentially looking for an exciting foreign opportunity, you need to make sure you’ve fully considered the Australia option. There’s a chance we may really need you out here. It’s a great place to bring your family, compared to many of the more traditional expat spots, and it’s going to be a lot easier than you think to make it a reality. 






Trevor Burne is Managing Director of Talascend. He blogs about Australian engineering jobs, and issues affecting Australian Engineers.

Hey Recruiter, Get off my Cloud.

Recruiters using Linked-in are driving me crazy. They’re flooding their profiles, and mine, with random job spam that neither targets me personally nor attempts to add value to my life. I’m ditching recruiting contacts left, right and centre because I’m so annoyed by the outright laziness of their tactics. 

It happens in so many spheres of life. If you put a coat of fresh paint on a large wall in any major city and leave it overnight, when you return in the morning it will be covered from top to bottom in posters and fliers, hawking everything from exotic dancers to cheap gold. It’s a shoddy, opportunistic approach, with no respect for the community or the potential customers that exist within it. Just jam it up there at any old angle and people will see it. It has to be better than nothing right? Wrong.

To treat an online market place like a useful fly posting spot for your random jobs is short sighted and naïve. You may get the occasional response, you may get a few, but you’re still taking a short cut that will ultimately lead you nowhere.

The currency of the Social Media market place has always been information, not distraction marketing. You have to build your audience the same way you would at a party; you have to share information, exchange ideas and build a sustainable network. That is the road to real, long term success. 

   

This week Josh Kaplan over at Talascend’s IT division talked about the growing value of Facebook as a job seeking tool. More and more people are finding employment on Facebook. According to a recent study, 18,000,000 Americans found their current job on Facebook. This is way more than Linked-In, and yet nobody posts jobs on Facebook. Instead they build networks of contacts that yield useful information through an exchange of information. Sooner or later, it leads to work.

If Recruiters continue to spam every job that crosses their desk out across Linked-in, they will decrease its value to them as a networking tool. Your customers don’t want to see every thought as it enters your head and nor do your peers and others in your industry sector, although your competitors might find it helpful to know what you’re recruiting on.

When was the last time you checked to see how many people had dropped you as a Linked-in contact? You should. And if you find it’s a great deal more than you thought, you might want to think about it before you spam your next job.

Recruiters have a critical role to play in helping people get the jobs they deserve and move their careers forward with real direction. If they think we're in it for a cheap buck, they will desert us in droves - and we will deserve it.




Trevor Burne is Managing Director of Talascend. He blogs about Australian engineering jobs, and issues affecting Australian Engineers.