Study finds only one-quarter of new accountants, finance workers are female
The study also found that skills shortages across finance and accounting have once again begun to rise in Australia, putting upward pressure on what firms are willing to pay.
New research from global talent company, Randstad, suggests the future of finance and accounting might be male-dominated, despite recent gains on gender representation.
Despite making up around half of the nation’s finance and accounting workers, the study found that the vast majority (77 per cent) of new starters are men.
Of the 23 countries involved in the study – including a number of European, North American and Asian countries – Australia has the third-lowest rate of female new starters across accounting and finance.
Joanne Jakobs, director of professional talent at Randstad, told Accounting Times the figure is “pretty shocking”.
The study also found the average salary range for finance and accounting skills in Australia is $69,000 to $170,000, placing the country among the world’s highest payers.
Skills shortages are placing upward pressure on what employers are willing to pay for finance and accounting professionals.
Compared to the global average, finance and accounting skills are two to five times more difficult to find in Australia. Senior talent is in particularly short supply globally, being 36 per cent harder to find across all markets.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics has forecasted that Australia will need an additional 10,000 accountants a year to reach its goal of 338,362 by 2026, and yet universities produce only around 2,000 graduates each year, said Jakobs.
“We need to revisit people’s understanding of what it means to be a finance and accounting professional before people make their career choices at universities,” she said.
Asked whether graduates might be considering alternative career options in light of the reputational damage wrought by the PwC tax leaks scandal, Jakobs said: “From what I can see, [the big four] are still filling their buckets in terms of graduates joining.”
“I think if you were to ask one of the big four, yes, definitely there has been some reputational damage,” she said. “What it probably does is causes talent to rethink whether they just put all their eggs in one basket, being, ‘Do we go and work for the top four or do we … look at other mid-tier companies?’”
Gen Z employees tend to be more value-oriented, she said, and this could operate against the big four in some cases, and for them in others, where younger workers will look to enter an industry leader at a time of revaluation.
Jakobs said that, relative to other industries, job vacancies in finance and accounting have remained stubborn following highs around mid-last year.
“[Job vacancies] peaked in around July of last year, but it hasn’t dropped as dramatically as a lot of other professional job types and, in fact, it’s now just starting to have an uptick again,” she said.
“It’s a very robust job category for people who are after stability or demand for their job skills,” she said.
The finance and accounting skills with the highest vacancy rates across Australia include regulatory compliance (4.9 per cent), budgeting and forecasting (3.4 per cent), financial analysis (2.6 per cent), taxation (2.6 per cent), accounting systems and software (2.3 per cent), financial reporting (2.1 per cent), auditing (1.6 per cent), and cost accounting (1.2 per cent).
“Demand for expert finance and accounting talent is already high, but as the sector evolves – fuelled by digitalisation, cyber security and decentralisation – this is only expected to soar,” said Jakobs.
“Leaders must now consider how they can improve their employer branding in order to attract and retain staff if they want to future-proof their business, as well as continuing to encourage women into the industry to strengthen gender equality.”
