Top trends giving employers headaches

New data has revealed which trends are hurting business performance and what employers are doing to combat the issues.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released the Characteristics of Australian Business for 2021–22, outlining what is negatively affecting Australian businesses.

The biggest hindrance to business performance was uncertainty about economic conditions, with 36 per cent of respondents citing it as a major issue. This was followed by supply chain issues at 30 per cent and lack of skilled persons within the labour market at 25 per cent.

Concerns about the labour market are increasing. According to ABS, 2022 saw 38 per cent of businesses struggling with skills shortages. This figure stood at 24 per cent in 2020.

The industry experiencing the highest number of shortages was accommodation and food services, with 56 per cent of businesses noting issues. This was followed by arts and recreation services at 47 per cent and retail trade at 45 per cent.

In response to these skills shortages, businesses have implemented a variety of measures to turn the figures around. The most popular option for 41 per cent of organisations was to increase pay. Coming in second at 39 per cent was increasing work hours, followed by increased internal training at 37 per cent.

Cyber security was another major concern for businesses, with 22 per cent of organisations reporting incidents. This is significantly higher than 8 per cent in 2020. In response to this rise, 70 per cent of companies have some form of cyber protection in place.

“Today’s Characteristics of Australian Business data release is important because it gives governments and researchers information about the prevalence, impacts and nature of cyber attacks. This helps them understand who they need to support and what strategies they need to use,” said Robert Ewing, head of ABS business statistics.

“In 2021–22, 34 per cent of businesses reported loss of time in managing cyber security attacks, 18 per cent reported downtime of service, while 17 per cent reported a loss of staff productivity.”

Mr Ewing continued: “Over 60 per cent of businesses reported regular updates to virus protection software. Around 37 per cent of businesses regularly backed up operations-critical data, while 20 per cent had identity access management and 13 per cent gave staff cyber security awareness training.”

The most common form of security incident was scams or fraud, with 16 per cent experiencing issues. This was followed by computers infected with malicious software, and impersonation of the business or employee online or by email, at 5 per cent each.

These cyber security incidents created a loss of time for 34 per cent of those affected. Meanwhile, 18 per cent were prevented from using resources or services, and 17 per cent saw a loss of staff productivity.

Helping to prevent these issues is of increasing concern. The most common safety measure for 62 per cent of organisations is to regularly update virus checking or protection software. Next was regularly backing up data, at 37 per cent, and restricting administrative privileges, at 24 per cent.