What is the market doing?

Welcome to the 19th AAAI Report.

You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to work out what is happening around the world today. However, while our employment figures are still strong the outlook ahead is largely unpredictable. The majority of people are currently concerned about what is happening around the world due to the current economic and financial crisis. This has lead to everyone feeling uncertain about the market place. Australia’s economy has been performing well across most sectors, at least compared to America. Sadly, there is no doubt we will see some contraction and tightening leading up to Christmas, as this is normal for this time of year. It is expected that this will extend into the first and second quarter of next year, and potentially further. China has already predicted that their economy will be slowing to 7% growth for 2009 (down 2/3%). This is likely to impact on our resources companies and the other world powers such as England, Europe and Asia, who are also predicting a slowing economy. On the positive side, the mining, resources, infrastructure, utilities, defence and building and construction engineering market sectors should perform well enough for the majority of companies to survive this period. This will be aided by the support and backing from the Australian Government who are maintaining their level of spending on key infrastructure projects.

We have seen a little increase in activity from candidates searching for new work opportunities in Australia and abroad. This has ensured that our workload as maintained strong levels across all states. As our group focuses on placing technical professionals, over this time of economic uncertainty, we will do not see work slowing down significantly. Overall for candidates, you are still in a strong position when it comes to looking for new work positions. If you are interested in looking at a career change or considering a new challenge in the near future, we welcome the opportunity to assist you in this move, on a confidential basis. Please feel free to our one of Directors in your State.

New Market Sectors: Defence and Aerospace

I would also like to take this opportunity to welcome a couple of our latest additions to the AAAI team. In Brisbane, senior consultant Mark Samios has recently joined our team with a strong focus on the Defence and Aerospace market sectors. Mark has an extensive background in engineering and Logistics and specializes in the Defence and Government Sectors. In Sydney, senior consultant James Clark joins our Defence and Aerospace team with a focus on placing senior professionals in positions such as Project Director, Project Manager and ILS. James and Mark will combine their market knowledge and experience to add value to our executive search capabilities in the group.

AAAI Contracting Business up and running.

It is with great delight that I can now officially introduce to our business Thomas Andersen, our new General Manager, AAAI Contracting. Thomas brings to our organisation a professional and innovative approach that complements our efforts on the permanent recruitment side of our business. Thomas is a degree qualified Mechanical Engineer with excellent commercial, technical and management experience gained from working in the professional services, engineering and construction market sectors in Australia and overseas. As client’s staff up projects quickly we have found in the past that to pull someone out of a permanent position to take up a short or medium term contract is not always plausible. Having a talent pool of candidates that enjoy and prefer to work on contract basis definitely has it benefits for both parties. The client get to "try" before they buy with the candidate, sharing the risks associated with such an arrangement. The candidate receives the chance to work on an exciting project with a defined period and with a guaranteed earning capacity. In a lot of cases, the client extends the contract with the candidate and moves him/her to another project or to another office depending on where the work is and the resources required to deliver the project.

Thomas is building up his contract base with our existing contract candidates who are registered on our system and I would suspect that if you haven’t already had contact from Thomas, then please make yourself known if you are interested in new contract roles. Thomas’s profile and a current list of open roles are up live on our website just in case you are interested in looking at new contract roles in the near future.

Once again, thank you for taking the time to read the AAAI Report.

Best regards,
Mike Hayes