Pharmacy Daily | Pharmacists remain on SPL in 2022

HOSPITAL and retail pharmacists remain on the Federal Government's 2022 Skills Priority List (SPL) released yesterday.

In its latest report the National Skills Commission noted that workforce shortages in the health professions increased by 47 percentage points in 2022.

The Commission reported that employers have struggled to fill roles in the health sector, with almost 50% of vacancies remaining unfilled due to a shortage of suitable candidates.

"While health professional occupations are at a high skill level, requiring a high level of qualification and experience, which can pose barriers to job entry, the result appears mostly driven by the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic," the Commission said.

"The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) reported that the healthcare and social assistance industry accounted for the largest share of people who changed jobs in the year ending Feb 2022 (12.2%).

"This may indicate that the healthcare and assistance industry is experiencing workforce instability including temporary redistribution of the Australian workforce in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as burn out of workers.

"On redeployment in response to the pandemic, an online survey with 7,846 respondents showed that during the height of the pandemic (Aug to Oct 2020), 21.5% of frontline workers increased their unpaid work hours, 16.8% were redeployed to work in a new work area, and 27.3% changed their work role.

"Regarding burn out, a survey (conducted in Aug to Oct 2020) showed that over 70% of healthcare workers experienced moderate to severe burn out.

"The impacts of redeployment and burn out could be lingering and/or ongoing as since the initial COVID-19 outbreak in Australia there have been multiple waves of outbreaks of COVID-19."

The Commission noted that job advertisements of healthcare roles hit an historic peak in Jul 2022, with demand for health professional forecast to remain moderate to high for the next five years.