DSR Summit: Panel experts debate ADF, industry recruitment

More than 300 defence industry professionals and company representatives attended the event hosted by MC, the Hon Christopher Pyne, and Momentum Media at the Four Seasons Hotel in Sydney on 3 May.

The central event for defence industry and the strategic policy community explored the impact of the Albanese government’s Defence Strategic Review (DSR), released on 24 April.

Recruitment was identified as a reoccurring issue across ADF, APS, and the defence industry, according to the DSR.

The document recommends an increase in recruitment speed from application-to-enlistment-to-recruitment and the process of recruitment should be achieved in days, not months.

During the DSR Summit, recruitment issues facing the industry were explored by Kate Louis, Australian Industry Group defence and industry policy head and Ai Group Defence Council executive director; Bondi Partners senior adviser Rear Admiral (Ret’d) Mark Purcell; Australian Industry and Defence Network chief executive officer Brent Clark; and Investment NSW Trade and Investment group managing director Kylie Bell.

Rear Admiral (Ret’d) Mark Purcell said workforce retention and recruitment across the Australian Defence Force has always been in the state of tension.

“We’ve never really had the sufficient workforce to [meet the] demand the full structure that we have,” he said.

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“I know from my own personal experience, that we hadn’t been able to get the force structure elements, ships, and submarines to sea.

“Sometimes, its material issues, things have broken down, but many times, it’s actually the workforce that you need to have a sufficiently trained and competent crew.

“There’s a whole range of issues that are driving that. Partly it’s the proposition of a life in service and life in uniform.

“I spent a long career in service, enjoyed the teamwork and the camaraderie as many other veterans here probably did but there is a little bit of a disincentive and community expectations around life in the service.

“We’re moving into more challenging strategic times … and I’m not so sure I’m comfortable with my children joining the Defence force. That’s a real concern.”

Purcell said concerns about different pay packages in the ADF, the Royal Commission into veterans’ suicide, and other issues are leading to a worsening recruitment situation.

“There’s no doubt the systems, the platforms that we’re getting are getting more complex, and therefore, we need more complex and more technically literate folks to make those case point around the statement. Where do we get those types of folks from?” he said.

“We’ve also got everybody in the globe is doing this as well; look at our allies, the US shipbuilding programs, the US Navy, the UK with their frigate program — we’re actually seeing a global demand for exactly the same skill sets both in the Australian Defence Force and also industry.

“I think it’s going to be a blend of solutions. There will be a sort of a value proposition and renumeration elements to it. There will be this camaraderie and the teamwork and things that many veterans value and that sense of national service and that sense of doing something to support the nation.

“But then, I think that’s really important to address those things at the back end of the veteran’s welfare and post separation, employment activities, and those sorts of things. I don’t think there’s one silver bullet, it has to be a layered and multifaceted approach.

“I was pleased to see at the strategic review the emphasis on workforce highlighted as a key issue. But I don’t necessarily technical solutions have been presented.”

Investment NSW Trade and Investment Group managing director Kylie Bell said building talent in Australia is a critical issue facing the industry.

“I don’t have a conversation with anyone without people in business, in industry, and government talking to me about the gap they have in talent at the moment and the pressure on their businesses,” she said.

“Over the last several years, we’ve been heavily involved in trying to build capabilities … we have a range of programs that we fund, like the Industry Placement Program (scholarships, vocational training, engineering, and First Nations programs).

“Not a day goes by where we, as a state government, don’t think about skills we offer, advocating heavily to the Commonwealth around reform to our migration program. The migration program might not be the solution to our Defence force, but certainly to employer organisations that are here in the room today may help get some talent to them as well.”

Australian Industry and Defence Network chief executive officer Brent Clark said there are ways to measure and predict recruitment needs in the defence industry.

“It's quite a simple process to actually work out the skills and numbers of people that you need. From an argument perspective if we need 1000, we know that every engineer that's been graduated now is employed, so therefore we need another 1000,” he said.

“We know that the fail rate is every five engineers into university, one pops out. So therefore, we need to have 5000 additional places… this is the body of work that can be done.

“We need government to actually go to the universities as an example and incentivise them to increase engineering.”

Mr Clark said there should also be safeguards put in place for retention of workers with small-to-medium enterprise businesses.

“From an SME perspective, the great fear is retention of their workforce,” he said. “We absolutely need ensure that there are safeguards in place, or there is a throughput for people so that they are not basically recruited out of business.”

Australian Industry Group defence and industry policy head and Ai Group Defence Council executive director Kate Louis said there are significant workforce and scaling challenges across the economy, particularly those requiring STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) skills.

“We definitely need a strategy of very dedicated workforce and skilling strategy in consultation with industry and training providers, one that is relatively neutral and can be subject to review,” she said.

“It really needs to be that whole pipeline through the education system, through the skilling, through the vocational end and on to workforce.”

Australian industry will be building a generic defence industry workforce, but specific recruitment will need to be planned in a more detailed, integrated investment plan, according to the AI Group Defence Council executive director.

“Due to the specialised nature of some of the requirements that we’re going to have from the nuclear-powered submarine industry,” she said.

“Skills, particularly around the SSN, will be specific and we need to start now with a sense of urgency to be able to build that in, if we don’t, we are at risk of not being able to deliver support.

“We certainly have a lot of competition (for recruitment) … I think it is up to a defence and industry to demonstrate what an awesome area it is to work. Things like Space Command and all these exciting technologies.

“The government has said they are extremely supportive of defence, Australia’s exports, and very focused on exports in terms of supporting the local industry and building an industrial base. But at the moment, we’re still waiting for the defence industry development strategies to show us what those frameworks will look like.

“The government hasn’t yet shown us in terms of its security objectives and economic objectives and how it’s going to make the pathway forward for supporting Australian industry.

“We really need an updated industry strategy and an updated export strategy, which will support how we get into supply chains.

“First off is we can’t increase capacity; we can’t increase manufacturing unless we have a workforce. The second thing is working with industry to enable technology and automation, because it comes back to the fact that there’s not enough humans.”