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Overview of Australian Manufacturing Industry
The manufacturing industry in Australia has been recording impressive performance for many years now. The industry offers a lot of employment opportunities to Australians as well as individuals from other countries. The recent researches that have been conducted show that, Australian industry provides more than one million direct job opportunities.
The industry constitutes about 14% of private sector employments and about 10% of all Australian jobs. From these researches too, the future of the industry is quite promising. For that reason, the government has invested a lot in the industry to assist in improving it accordingly (Dick 2007, p. 291).
In addition, the effective communication between the local and the foreign manufacturers has also contributed to the success of the industry.
These foreign manufacturers provide the local ones with the necessary information regarding the conditions of the global markets. This implies that, the manufacturing industry in Australia relies mostly on foreign supplies for its achievements (Dick 2007, p. 293).
The report compiled in 2006 indicates that, the industry generated more than $448, 560 million to the Australian government. In that year, the industry was operating at a gross product of $ 94, 800 million. There are various components, which contributed to this gross product. They included enterprises with 320 units and establishments at over 460 units.
The industry provided more than 210,100 units of job opportunities. The industry also contributed more than $231,560 and $52,530 respectively, to the Australian economy from goods manufactured locally as well as those sold in the global markets (Dick 2007, p. 294).
In order to operate properly, the manufacturing industry requires workers with appropriate skills related to the industry’s activities. In other words, the industry requires individuals who have technical manufacturing know-how, mechanical proficiency and who can depict maximum loyalty to the manufacturing companies.
The industry obtains these workers locally as well as from other countries. This process of obtaining workers to help run the activities of these manufacturing companies is referred to as staffing (Cook 2009, p. 57).
There are several aspects, which affect staffing in Australian manufacturing industry. These aspects include demographic, economic, socio-cultural and political factors among others. This paper is going to discuss how these factors influence the staffing process in the Australian manufacturing industry. It will also give recommendations on how staffing in the manufacturing industry can be done to increase the productivity of the industry (Gatewood, Field & Barrick 2011, p. 31).
Change in Technology
Technology defines the process by which a manufacturing plant transforms its raw materials to final products. Therefore, technology includes aspects such as machinery, work format, employees’ know-how, tools and equipment. As the world continues to change, technology also changes.
Research has shown that technological changes impact greatly on the way manufacturers compete with one another, the way they market their products and more importantly, the way they recruit employees (Weihrich, Koontz & Cannice 2010, p. 249).
Technological improvement has been the main driving force in the creation of new markets for Australian manufactured goods.
The advancement has equally resulted in the expansion of the existing markets. Manufacturing companies, which have already incorporated modern technologies into their production processes, produce goods that compete fairly in Australian local markets as well as the foreign ones (Weihrich, Koontz & Cannice 2010, p. 251).
Following the changes in technology and the quest of manufacturing industry in Australia to keep up with the changes, the industry requires individuals with new manufacturing skills. In other words, as these manufacturing companies struggle to adopt the new technologies, the need to recruit employees with new skills also arises.
Other manufacturing companies have been training the existing employees on the new technologies. Establishing and implementing new technologies is the only way a manufacturing company in Australia can survive the current stiff competition (Ross, Verclas, Levine & Levine 2009, p. 43).
To some extent, technological advancement in Australia has resulted in under-staffing of the manufacturing companies in this country. It is a common knowledge that new technologies improve the economy of a country. Higher economic growth rates on the other hand, is a characteristic of higher rate of unemployment.
Australian manufacturing companies, which use advanced technologies, have retrenched most of their employees who do not have the necessary skills. The companies find it expensive to train and retrain these employees on the aspects of the new technology (Weihrich, Koontz & Cannice 2010, p. 256).
Social and Cultural Factors
The major social-cultural factors influencing the way manufacturing industry in Australia recruit their employees include Australian culture, discriminatory aspect and the size and composition of the Australian population (Vance & Paik 2011, p. 180).
Culture has great effects on the staffing process in the Australian manufacturing industry. It has been proved that, workers recruited into manufacturing industry with culture as one of the major bases, get assimilated faster, they record better performance, and are likely to stay longer in these companies (Vance & Paik 2011, p. 182).
Most of the Australian manufacturing companies prefer to employ individuals possessing Australian culture. The companies argue that, these kinds of workers are easy to train, are much familiar with the Australian environment and in most cases, are loyal to the rules of the companies.
Employing such individuals also helps the manufacturing industry to improve its productivity. However, some of the companies hold a different opinion they employ people from different cultures. Incorporating foreign employees into the list of workers may help a company to discover new aspects that are crucial to the manufacturing activities (Vance & Paik 2011, p. 182).
Discrimination may lead to a section of a population being denied the chance to work in certain manufacturing companies. It is a fact that some of the Australian manufacturing companies discriminate against some races, minority language group and castes among other groups of individuals. There are some companies, which specifically recruit people from a particular background (Klein 2007, p. 356).
Discrimination has also been blamed in the recruitment of a particular sex. Most companies in the industry feel that women are not fit for the manufacturing activities. For that reason, the companies have a staff consisting of more males than females.
This may be a draw back to the performance of these companies. Some women are more knowledgeable than their male counterparts and so, denying them the chance to work in the manufacturing industry is the same as preventing the knowledge they have from assisting the companies to achieve their objectives (Vance & Paik 2011, p. 185).
Demographic Factors
The major demographic factors that affect the way Australian manufacturing companies recruit workers include the level of education, age and sex (Caruth, Caruth & Pane 2009, p. 118). The level of education is known to influence greatly the way manufacturing industry in Australia staff the companies.
Most of these companies require that those interested in working for them be taken through a thorough training before being employed in the companies.
Those companies, which deal in production of highly technological products such as motor vehicles require individuals with advanced skills and experience. For that reason, such companies only recruit individuals who have specific qualifications from college (Caruth, Caruth & Pane 2009, p. 121).
Age is also a major factor that the companies consider when hiring people to work for them. Since manufacturing activities involve mostly physical work, the manufacturing companies insist on recruiting individuals who are young, energetic and willing to work for extra hours in form of overtime.
This has resulted in the companies having staffs that mainly comprise of individuals between 25 to 40 years of age. Old people are not hired since the nature of the manufacturing jobs is not suitable for them. The companies too have to follow the Australian government rules on employment and so, underage individuals are not employed to work in the companies (Caruth, Caruth & Pane 2009, p. 122).
Sex refers to either being male or female. The manufacturing companies prefer to hire male individuals to female ones. Since the government employment rules require that expectant women be given a three month-leave from work, the companies feel that, hiring a bigger number of women will interfere with their production pace.
The companies also view it as a loss since the women on leave have to be paid without working. As a consequence, the manufacturing companies have staffs constituted by bigger number of men than that of women (Brown & Swain 2009, p. 28).
Political Factors
Political and governmental forces just like other factors influence the way companies hire employees. Government rules dictate companies to follow the laid down procedures when recruiting individuals to work for them. For instance, companies have to consider aspects such as age, ethnicity and sex while recruiting employees.
Government requires that there has to be at least a third of each sex in the total number of employees in every company. It is also a criminal offence in Australia for a company to employ a minor to work for it (Gatewood, Field & Barrick 2011, p. 37).
There are some companies in Australia for which the government selects the senior staff. These are mostly public companies. In such cases, the dominant factor in the selection is politics. The individuals are purely chosen through parliament votes.
Voting in parliament is an activity that is dictated upon by the majority. In some cases, the voting process provides outcome that are not really helpful to these public companies. Still, parliament’s decision in Australia is considered final and hence, irreversible (Gatewood, Field & Barrick 2011, p. 40).
Economic Factors
Economy as a whole has great impact on the staffing of a company. The economy of Australia has been steady for the last ten years. In other words, the economy has been expanding rapidly. This has in turn compelled the manufacturing companies to find ways to maintain the expansion.
One of the ways has been to intensify the use of modern technologies in production. Technology advancement combines several stages of production thereby minimizing the number of stages that are required in the production of a particular product. As a result, companies find it necessary to retrench some of the workers.
In essence, the expansion in Australian economy has resulted in reduced staff in various manufacturing economies (Caruth, Caruth & Pane 2009, p. 127).
The State of the economy determines the amount of wages and salaries that manufacturing companies offer their employees. Manufacturing companies would not want to run at a loss by offering huge wages than what the economy can support.
This also applies to the Australian manufacturing companies. As a result, only individuals who accept the pay offered to them by the companies are employed and retained in the manufacturing industry (Cook 2009, p. 61).
Recommendations
Technology is an important factor in the manufacturing industry in Australia. It is a factor that helps a company to compete effectively in the Australian local markets as well as the markets abroad. However, advancement in technology leads to reduction in the number of staff.
In other words, it leads to unemployment. It is therefore important that change in technology is designed in such a way that it either maintains the current status of employment or if possible, it increases the number of job opportunities in the manufacturing industry (Weihrich, Koontz & Cannice 2010, p. 258).
As much as the manufacturing companies feel that employing individuals with background knowledge of the country is more important, to a greater extent it hinders the introduction of new ideas into the industry. The companies should employ individuals with different backgrounds.
This implies that the companies should not consider the place of origin during recruitment of employees. Foreigners are known to have new ideas, most of which may be quite crucial in the development of these companies (Koontz & Weihrich 2010, p. 224).
In order to allow the manufacturing industry in Australia to function independently, the Australian government needs to keep itself away from the industry. In most cases, politics have been proved to cause malfunctions in the operations of manufacturing companies especially the public ones.
Since the government may not be in the best position to determine what is really required in a particular company, entirely leaving the decision making processes to the companies’ board of directors will be the best thing to do (Koontz & Weihrich 2010, p. 227).
In conclusion, manufacturing industry in Australia plays a great role in boosting the country’s economy. Through the industry, the country has been able to create a lot of job opportunities to majority of Australians. The staffing of these companies is influenced by a number of factors. These factors include demographic, economic, change in technology, government and political influence and social-cultural forces.
References
Brown, JN & Swain, A 2009, The professional recruiter’s handbook: delivering excellence in recruitment practice, Kogan Page, London.
Caruth, DL, Caruth, GD & Pane, SS 2009, Staffing the contemporary organization: a guide to planning, recruiting, and selecting for human resource professionals, Praeger Publishers, Westport, CO.
Cook, M 2009, Personal selection: adding value through people, Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester, NH.
Dick, H 2007, The internationalization strategies of small-country firms: the Australia experience of globalization, Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd, Northampton, MA.
Gatewood, RD, Field, HS & Barrick, M 2011, Human resource selection, South-Western Cengage Learning, Mason, OH.
Klein, SS 2007, Handbook for achieving gender equity through education, Routledeg, Mahwah, NJ.
Koontz, H & Weihrich, H 2010, Essentials of management: an international perspective, Teta McGraw-Hill, New Delhi.
Ross, H, Verclas, K, Levine & Levine, A 2009, Managing technology to meet your mission, a strategic guide for nonprofit leaders, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA.
Vance, CM & Paik, Y 2011, Managing a global workforce: challenges and opportunities in international human resource management, Sharpe, Armonk, NY.
Weihrich, H, Koontz, H & Cannice, MV 2010, management: a global and enterprenuerial perspective, Teta McGraw-Hill, New Delhi.
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