"I think it is OK in the city but as soon as you get out of the city, it is a very difficult position to get hold of." Dave Callan, who managers a physiotherapy practice in Avalon, says it can be hard to get physiotherapists to work out of the city. Credit:Wolter Peeters The survey of more than 800 businesses across the state is the Business Chamber's first detailed assessment of business attitudes to skills training and employment. It estimates that skills shortages will amount to more than 54,000 jobs statewide. More than a quarter of employers (28.5 per cent) said it was easier to hire someone already qualified than to train someone, and 23 per cent said they did not have the budget to train workers. More than one in five (22.6 per cent) said their staff were too busy to train a new worker. Academics have challenged employer perceptions saying some businesses are experiencing difficulties in recruitment because of the wages they offer, as opposed to a genuine skills shortage.

NSW Business Chamber chief executive officer Stephen Cartwright said the new survey identified a need to give employers support with the costly and time-consuming business of training workers. It also highlighted the need to give employers more support in hiring and retaining training workers. "The administrative burden is a real deterrent, with employers finding it difficult to navigate the system and find the right information despite the wealth of material available," Mr Cartwright said. The survey found that 63.3 per cent of 108 manufacturing businesses and 41.3 per cent of retail and wholesale businesses reported their perception of a skills shortage. Regional skills shortages as high as 70.6 per cent were reported by the 50 businesses surveyed in Western NSW. In Sydney, 52.9 per cent of the 280 businesses surveyed said they had skills shortages.

Mr Cartwright said hundreds of cranes dotting the skyline in Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong meant a construction boom was underway. "This record infrastructure pipeline presents an 'unmissable' opportunity to upskill the next generation, making it alarming that more than two-thirds of construction businesses responding to our survey reported a shortfall in skills," he said. "At a time when high youth unemployment has reached crisis levels in some areas of NSW, it is also troubling to see indications of a mismatch between what employers expect from their staff and what our education system is currently producing." Mr Cartwright urged the NSW Government to use the state budget to invest in employability programs, kick-start incentives for employers and pilot innovative new apprenticeship models. "Governments should see these results as a call to action," he said.

Professor John Buchanan, chair of business analytics at the University of Sydney Business School, said the retail industry had difficulty attracting the skills it needed because of the relatively low wages it offered. "It's a skills shortage at that rate of pay," Professor Buchanan said. "These are employer perceptions about what they want at their going rate of pay." Professor Buchanan said barriers identified to engaging apprentices indicated a reluctance by employers to want to train workers.

"That is buttressed by them not having a budget to train and finding they are so understaffed they don't have the wherewithal to train," he said. "If there are skills shortages then employers have to look at their own practices and habits. "Some employers are stepping up and becoming self-reliant. The dairy sector put a levy on themselves to figure out creative ways of meeting the challenge." Employment relations expert Dr Chris F Wright from the University of Sydney business school and his colleague Dr Andreea Constantin have found in their research that employers were using 457 visas in the hospitality industry to overcome recruitment difficulties, which are not the same as skills shortages. Dr Wright said this was especially the case in accommodation and food services. The three main occupations are cooks, cafe and restaurant managers and chefs.

For a skills shortage to exist as distinct from a recruitment difficulty, Wright says it has to be across the labour market and not specific to a particular employer. And it has to be persistent. Employers can respond to a skills shortage by setting higher wages, providing better career opportunities or training workers. But in a tough business environment only 1 per cent of 1600 employers using 457 visas were prepared to address a job vacancy by increasing wages. They were more likely to recruit labour from overseas. Dr Wright said his research shows that employers in hospitality were 13 times more likely to prefer 457 visa holders over similar Australian workers. "The scheme is designed to address shortfalls of qualified workers, but hospitality employers were just as likely to recruit 457 visa workers because they were perceived as being harder working or more loyal," Dr Wright said.

"The scheme has essentially been misused by many employers in this industry. The evidence suggests that employers, especially in hospitality, aren't prepared to improve the quality of jobs in the industry to make them more attractive to locals."