Feature
Issue No. 40 - April/ /
Defence workforce fills ranks
South Australia’s defence sector workforce grew by almost 16% last year as direct employment boomed on the back of preparation for major projects.
Industry leaders are delighted with the result and looking to ways to reinforce a trend which shows little sign of levelling out.
The South Australian Defence Industry Workforce Update 2007, commissioned from the South Australian Centre For Economic Studies and released in March, follows up on a 2006 survey. Updates will
occur annually.
CEO of peak body, the Defence Teaming Centre, Phillip de Courcey, says the sector’s marked growth shows how SA industry is shifting its weight from declining industrial sectors to meet an opportunity.
The defence workforce figures relate to projects that are already in the pipeline. While contractors still have to win work in compliance with standard business practice, Phil concedes the boom is substantially ‘recession proof’.
More enterprises are moving into the defence sector. Phil says DTC has more than 200 members now as companies with automotive or other manufacturing backgrounds gear up for defence work and look for “enduring opportunities”.
“This will have an effect of restructuring industry so that our manufacturers have a more highly skilled workforce,” Phil says – a good thing, since it’s in Australia’s strategic interest to maintain higher level manufacturing capability such as shipbuilding.
Thirty five firms participated in the survey for a second time – a 100% repeat rate – and a further 19 firms joined in for a total of 54 defence firms and organizations participating in 2007.
As a group they expected their revenue from defence work to increase over time. About 58% of the firms presently earned 30% of their revenue or less from defence, but only 32% expected to be earning less than 30% of income from defence by 2009-2010.
“Total employment in the 35 major defence f...
