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Creation Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2011 GMT

Engineering the big skill for new decade

Engineering executives will have the best employment conditions in 2010 thanks to government infrastructure spending and their good fortune should continue for years, research has found.

But for executives in other sectors the job market could get worse before it gets better, according to the E L Executive Demand Index.

Executive search firm E L Consult managing director Grant Montgomery says that after a fairly flat 2009, the job market for Australia's higher paid executive workforce is unlikely to do much better this year.

Advertisement: Story continues below The executive job market early this year would be subdued and could even show some decline as the government stimulus winds down, he said.

"More positive results are likely in the second half as the effects of the global financial crisis diminish and small business, Australia's largest employment group, pick-up and reinvest," Mr Montgomery said.

"However, the increased depreciation benefits end with the new year and the government is already committed to winding down its big direct spend of 2009.

"Unfortunately there are no immediate signs of growth in the private sector and a highly restricted capital market, especially for small business, could mean a tougher job market at least the first half."

But engineers will see the best employment conditions of all executives in 2010 and this will continue well into the decade, the index found.

"Engineers will continue to benefit from government infrastructure spending and will soon see significant increases in demand once some of the massive energy projects such as the recently announced, Gorgon Gas project in Western Australia, move into the design and construction phases," Mr Montgomery said.

"The outlook for the next year, in fact the next five years is very positive for Australian engineers right across the board including chemical, electrical and construction engineering.

"This is in part due to China's huge growth but there are also other big or growing regional economies hungry for our energy and other resources."

The only engineering skill that might be considered overweight is environmental engineering which has benefited from the recent carbon hysteria in much the same way as computing did from the Internet boom, it found.

"But given the political and other vested interests it may take more than just 2010 for a readjustment in this discipline," Mr Montgomery said.

Lema Samander, 'The Sydney Morning Herald', January 6 2010