Last month, before COVID-19 restrictions came into place, Monica Clare Recruitment hosted their very first engineering invite-only event, The Engineers Lunch, which revealed a positive future in sight for the local industry.

The event centred around engineering forecasts and discussions on the impact new Government legislation would make in the industry.

Sixty of the region’s leading engineering professionals came along to Foghorn Brewhouse for the event, which was held in partnership with Engineers Australia.

Monica Clare Recruitment Business Director, Clare Ferguson, said it was great to be able to invite professionals together to talk about the future with an air of positivity, especially in light of these trying times.

“In times like these it’s important to remain positive about the future of our local industries. This event was able to hold up a microscope to the current landscape and reveal some very exciting things in store for the future of engineers in our great region,” Clare said.

As part of the event, Engineers Australia’s National Manager of Advocacy, Jonathon Russell headlined the event as the main speaker, painting an optimistic future for the industry after what has been a period of significant historic fluctuation.

Jonathon said that engineers have recently had to endure some tough times, but revealed things are expected to turn around in comparison to the downturns experienced over the past few years.

“The supply demand is ticking up, however it’s too early to determine if this will sustain. Indications suggest the industry is in a good spot,” he said.

Jonathon said that there is an uneven level of supply and demand between the market and intake of engineering students each year and that this is something that needs to change.

This knock-on effect known as the feedback loop can be broken if people are open to diversifying, Jonathon said.

“The Newcastle region is historically focused on the mining sector, and this could be a weakness to market fluctuation,” Jonathon said.

“If the mining or heavy industry markets take a hit, this could affect supply and demand chains in the local region.”

For Newcastle to continue strength-to-strength, heavy investment in diversification is required.

“As a business, diversify what you’re involved in. As a country, diversify what you’re producing. As a government, provide long-term certainty in the industry,” he said.

Jonathon believes long pipelines of work are what’s needed to completely steady this effect.

Engineers Australia further revealed that the creation of a National Engineering Register (NER) is now in sight with the announcement of new legislation.

This means engineers will have to demonstrate competence at ongoing intervals in their career.

It also lengthens the number of demonstrated years of experienced required, necessitates a commitment to a minimum number of professional development hours each year, and provides an oath to a code of ethics.

Despite the unquestionable challenges in store, Jonathon said the future is bright and that our engineers will be essential to the growth of the nation’s economy.

“There are huge challenges for the nation, but engineers are essential for this change,” he said.

“Infrastructure is experiencing strong growth and the nation is moving towards addressing climate change, which means building resilience and reducing emissions will create new pipelines of work.”

With the new pipelines of work, Clare said their team will be continuing to look out for the best engineering opportunities for their clients so they can provide back to the greater community.

“The future of employment in the engineering industry is bright, this is what our most recent event revealed to us,” Clare said.

“As a response to this our team will continue to be on that journey with clients, to ensure we can give back to the community and industry at large. This way we can do our part to benefit the nation as a whole.”

Overall statistics reveal that NSW are the dominant suppliers of engineers. Twenty-five per cent of all engineers are from NSW, with seven per cent located in the Hunter, Lake Macquarie and Newcastle regions.

IMAGE | National Manager of Public Affairs from Engineers Australia, Jonathon Ross and Monica Clare Recruitment Business Director, Clare Ferguson