Australia Could Reach Full Employment If Diversity Hiring Embraced: Report

Employment advertisements are highlighted in a newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, on Oct. 9, 2014. Scott Barbour/Getty Images

Australia could reach full employment if employers chose to embrace diversity hiring practices, new research has revealed.

The Diversity Council of Australia (DCA) has found that although Australia is experiencing a 50-year record-low unemployment level, nearly a third of Australian organisations have noted that they can’t find suitable staff to fill jobs.

CEO of DCA Lisa Annese said in a media release that there is a wealth of talent in the Australian market with more than three million people looking for work or who want more work.

According to the DCA research (pdf), of the three million jobseekers in Australia, most are likely to be from marginalised groups, including people with a physical or social disability like autism, carers, and older jobseekers.

“More often than not, these potential workers belong to marginalised groups. And not only are these workers being left off recruitment radars, they are experiencing bias and exclusion in the recruitment process itself—both covertly and overtly,” Annese said.

“Australian organisations need to diversify who and how they hire if they are to meet their workforce needs—tapping into pools of talent typically left off their recruitment radars.”

She said that the new DCA research has found that while many employers focus on inclusive recruitment that treats everyone the same, in doing so recruiters often have a bias against job seekers that are neurodiverse or different from the majority.

“The best way to be equitable and inclusive is to treat people fairly—and sometimes that requires treating some people differently to others,” Annese said.

Recruitment Processes Need to Consider Diversity

The DCA recommends that companies finding it difficult to find skilled workers should make sure that their recruitment processes are open to these marginalised groups and consider how they are defining their merit-based hiring, which they argue can lead to bias.

“We often rely on the ideal of merit to guarantee fairness, equity, and inclusion in recruitment (for example, “we only hire on merit”). In theory it should work, but in practice what seems to be an objective process—looking at skill and experience—is often subjective, prone to bias and can amplify inequality. By challenging what the most meritorious or best applicant is, we can avoid falling into this trap by unlocking Australia’s wider pool of talent,” the report said.

Interim CEO of Jobsbank, Graeme Kelly, said that the report demonstrates the ways in which Australian businesses can recruit diverse candidates that will improve their bottom line.

“From construction to cleaning, and from hospitality to healthcare, this report highlights what Australian businesses can do to recruit and retain talented and diverse workforces, improving their inclusivity and their bottom lines along the way,” he said.

Jobsbank is a not-for-profit recruitment agency which works with business to fill workforce gaps.

The company notes that employment of more people with disabilities for example would result in a $43 billion (US$27 billion) increase in Australia’s GDP and that according to their research compared to colleagues without disabilities, people with disabilities rated 90 percent above average or better on performance.

“Jobs change lives. And since the earliest days of the Social Procurement Framework, businesses have been calling for practical tools to unlock life-changing employment for Australian jobseekers,” Kelly said.