The initial employment impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on Professional Engineers

While the COVID-19 crisis presents massive challenges, there are also opportunities in the engineering sector as Australia moves into post-health crisis phase.

Australia is experiencing a significant downturn in economic activity with high levels of unemployment, underemployment and low GDP growth expectations as the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic unfolds. Australian GDP is likely to fall well short of the 2.75 per cent predicted for the 2020 financial year1.

It is clear that the pandemic will have a major impact on the engineering and construction labour market in the coming 12 months but the magnitude of the changes, the long-term impact on employment levels, the speed of the recovery and the extended outlook for particular industries are obviously difficult to forecast at this stage.

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