Financial adviser enters skills shortage list
Financial investment advisers have been identified as an area experiencing a skill shortage according to Jobs and Skills Australia (JSA).
The annual Skills Priority List, released by JSA, provides a current assessment of the Australian labour market.
Financial investment advisers are one of 66 occupations assessed as being “in shortage” in 2023 when they had not been in 2022.
The number of financial advisers has been in steady decline in recent years since the Hayne royal commission.
It fell below 20,000 for the first time since 2015 in September 2021, and is now at 15,692.
JSA identified occupations with “a strong gender imbalance” are more likely to be in shortage with over half of occupations where males make up at least 80 per cent of the workforce experiencing shortages.
Research by Wealth Data in September found the split of male to female financial advisers overall is 77 per cent male and 23 per cent female, just slightly lower than JSA’s example. However, when breaking it down by sector, the number of male advisers in the investment advice sector is 83 per cent.
Other financial services jobs that are in a shortage this year include insurance loss adjuster and taxation accountant.
“The increases over the last three years are being driven by the continued tightness in labour market conditions,” the report said.
“While underlying drivers of shortages can vary across occupations, it is anticipated that these shortages reflect either a lack of people who have the essential technical skills or other (non-technical) qualities that employers consider are important; or those with the right technical skills and other qualities who aren’t willing to apply for the vacancies under current pay and working conditions.”
The share of employment for the financial services and insurance industry is 3.9 per cent and is projected to remain that proportion in May 2028 and May 2033.
Employment growth is projected to be 6.5 per cent over the next five years and 13.8 per cent over the next 10 years.
The report also noted only 1 per cent of employers changed the remuneration offered in response to job shortages to attract skilled workers.
As well as data from the JSA, a Treasury report into jobs and opportunities found financial investment advisers are least likely to be working in their nominated occupation.
The job is one of 10 roles that have the lowest share of permanent migrants working in the nominated occupation or at a higher skill level nominated occupations. Some 37.7 per cent are working in the nominated occupation and 7.9 per cent are working at the same or higher skill level as the nominated occupation.
This compared to almost 100 per cent for medical roles such as resident medical officer, dentist, physiotherapist and general medical practitioner.
According to the report: “Nearly a quarter of permanent skilled migrants are working in a job beneath their skill level. This could reflect a range of reasons, including challenges navigating licensing systems, completing top-up qualifications, and working through Australian recruitment processes. Discrimination and unconscious bias among employers can also adversely impact migrant employment outcomes.
“Some occupations exhibit particularly poor results for migrant skills matching. Migrant engineers and accountants stand out among the occupations not matching well into their nominated occupation.”
The Skills Priority List will be open for consultation between November 2023 and January 2024.
AUTHOR
Laura Dew
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I've told numerous "kids" considering financial planning as a career to do something else, principally accounting in the past 12 months. Financial Planning is dying if not dead unless ASIC changes something and they have repeatably shown they are incapable of improving the profession.
There is no skills shortage.
The government is just seeking an excuse to bring in a few more hundred thousand extra migrants per annum ; thereby decreasing wages for Big Business.
We truly live in bizzaro world.
Here, I'll break down the ideology.
The shortage has nothing to do with the tug of war over people's income and the wealth created.
It has to do with the ongoing dystopia that is the Patriarchy and when viewed through this lens, Men, most likely Men defined by a particular skin colour, aren't doing enough with their unearned privilege to promote not just equal opportunities but equal or even superior outcomes for those that they and their ancestors have oppressed. Addressing this clear ongoing distortion will cure all the world's ills including the shortage of financial advisers.
Guess this won't be put up will it.
Good luck everyone. The next 15 years are going to be really interesting for us all.
Overseas immigrants cannot transfer their foreign superannuation accumulations like a rollover within Australia. It is subject to Treasury rules imposed by the Taxation Office to treat a transfer as a contribution, subject to Contribution Caps in the 1 year received in Australia. Is that fair? It was accumulated in another G20 taxation jurisdiction over many years in an overseas complying retirement funding arrangement. This Treasury policy appears 'not a fair go' under the Australian ethos, it is a disincentive to bring the funds into Australia, when instead, overseas transfers into Australian superannuation should be encouraged up to the Social Security Assets Tests limit to reduce their dependency on the Government, when they reach retirement age. This should be inserted into the Pensions Clause in Double Taxation Agreements.
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