Staff and skills shortages are affecting businesses big and small.
Council has recently surveyed and met with many businesses and workforce challenges are a common issue, made harder by COVID-19.
The survey was sent out to over 200 businesses in the Shire, with 51 responding.
Questions ranged from workforce size to supports and incentives.
The largest groups of responding businesses being retail, hospitality and manufacturing- the majority had less than 20 employees, most of whom live within the Shire.
The majority of participants said finding staff was either difficult or very difficult.
Although there was difficulty in attracting all occupational groups some, such as qualified professionals, qualified trades people, and skilled workers, were particularly hard to recruit.
Rates of staff turnover varied significantly with the majority of businesses had a rate of under 20%, nearly a third reported a turnover of zero.
Key findings from the recently completed survey were presented to businesses in a forum, which included representatives from the agricultural, manufacturing, education and community sectors.
In addition to posting a copy of this report to the 51 participants it has been distributed widely to State and Federal Government Agencies, educational institutes including TAFE and Universities, local secondary schools, social enterprises and the Committee for Maryborough.
Initial meetings with post-secondary providers are already underway to explore opportunities for training to assist with skills enhancement of existing staff through to potential new employees entering or those seeking to re-enter the workforce to meet current and future staff shortages.
A report on the findings has now been published and is available to read here: Recruitment and Retention Survey(PDF, 2MB)
