25

Nov 2021

Australia “Great Resignation” Impacting Australian Accounting Firms

By: Odyssey General
Tags: labour shortage, Post-COVID

More recently we’ve been approached by a few accounting firms who have commented they’ve lost staff recently, and are unable to find suitable staff replacements.

Some of these firms believe this is only temporary, which has shown Odyssey’s ad-hoc business model an appropriate model for these firms to deploy in the short term.

While there is some online discussion as to whether the “great resignation” is a thing in Australia, there is certainly continued instability in the labour market while a solution on work/home life balance is reached in order to minimize covid burnout.

The “Great Resignation” which seems to be sweeping the world involves three impacts for Australian accounting firms:

  • Employees who are permanently resigning, seeking other opportunities in different sectors and/or geographic locations. In this instance there may be a flow of skilled accountants to other areas, which likely means not a net loss to the local accounting workforce. The only longer term exception is where accountants move from commercial to government roles, as the government seems to have the ability to soak up surplus resources.
  • Employees who are permanently resigning, and looking to take an extended time off, for travel or other reasons. These employees will exit the labour market temporarily, and may indeed find more life fulfilling work in other areas, perhaps on a beach in Bali or elsewhere. So there is a real risk these employees may exit the local accounting workforce permanently.
  • Employees who are unwilling/unable to accept pre-COVID work patterns, who cannot return to the 5 day office grind after enjoying freedoms from working from home, or simply have modified their home life significantly they can’t return to a 5 day working week in an office.

Regardless of the mix and extent of the impacts on Australian accounting firms, it seems prudent to explore outsourcing as an opportunity to smooth out temporary labour resource shortages.

If you’d like ad-hoc assistance with your compliance work then drop us a line.


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