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Nurses are a vital and unique workforce in Australia with some important workforce characteristics. Nursing is a sex segregated and aging workforce: more than 90 per cent of nurses are women and the average age of female registered nurses is 45 and of male nurses 43 years. Almost half of the nursing workforce works part-time with the average hours worked also declining in the past decade. On average, female nurses work approximately 7 hours less than male nurses. Currently, across most Australian states there are severe shortages identified in the nursing workforce with efforts at both national and state levels in increased training opportunities and retention. The aim of this study was to explore how nursing families manage working and caring for their families. We were interested in how work and family decisions intersected and the ways in which nursing employment shaped and was shaped by family life. Participants in the study were heterosexual couples living in urban Victoria - Melbourne or Geelong. Each of the couples had one partner employed as a nurse and at least one child under 12. In depth couple interviews were conducted on domestic decision making, careers, working hours, childcare, domestic labour and support networks. The interviews were tape recorded and fully transcribed and analysed thematically. The research findings offer rich and nuanced information about work and family preferences and constraints for nurses in contemporary Australia.

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This report examines skills shortages and labour market dynamics in Western Australia's (WA's) labour market and provides a fresh conceptual look at what skills shortages are, new empirical evidence on how they arise, as well as potential responses by government and industry. The report explores barriers that prevent fuller engagement in the labour force as well as solutions in the short term and longer term that would improve access to employment opportunities, and by doing so, capitalise on Australia's potential workforce talent. In addition, the report assesses the process and speed of labour market adjustments across Australia's states and territories and highlights the unique features of WA's labour market that impede efficient adjustments and prevent the full utilisation of potential labour.

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Current skill shortages and the knowledge that our population is ageing have given rise to concerns that we will face severe skill shortages in coming decades (see, for example, the Australian Council of Trade Unions, 2004). This chapter looks at one area of particular interest, that of the trades. The reason we single out the trades is that they draw their new entrants from a narrow demographic group - young men - and therefore, prima facie, this labour market will be particularly vulnerable to the ageing of the population. The approach we take is quite straightforward. We build a workforce model that assumes a supply-driven approach and compare the projections with those obtained from a demand-driven approach. Any shortfall will be taken as evidence that we have a particular problem. The structure of the chapter is as follows. In the first section we build the supply workforce model. Following this, we use the model to provide a set of projections. We then construct a set of projections with a more demand flavour. The next section brings the two approaches together in order to gain an understanding of the extent to which we will have shortages in the trades.

Excerpt from published introduction.

The book from which this chapter is taken is indexed at TD/TNC 100.51. Individual chapters are indexed from TD/TNC 100.52 to TD/TNC 100.244. Show less

Different policies are being promoted to increase the labour supply in ageing labour markets. This article presents the results of a large-scale survey carried out among Dutch employers into their management of the constraints presented by a tight labour market. Organizations take different measures in response to staff shortages, which can in fact be distinguished as four strategies. The first relates to the recruitment of new groups of workers: groups that traditionally were perhaps not a preferred choice. The principal measures in this strategy are the recruitment of women and ethnic workers, and to a lesser extent the elderly. The second strategy focused on increasing the labour supply of existing workers. Overtime, encouraging part-timers to work extra hours and a structural increase in the length of the working week were part of this strategy. The measures constituting the third strategy were of a different type. Generally, these measures were adopted in order to cope with temporary peaks. Work was outsourced, a recruitment agency used, and higher wages offered to try to fill a vacancy. The fourth strategy focused on substituting technology/capital for labour. Regression analyses is carried out to explain which strategies organizations use to deal with shortages.

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