While architecture employment appears to be stabilising and even rising in the UK, the Australian situation is not as robust, according to Australian recruiters.

The number of unemployed architects has fallen for the second month in a row in the UK, with the dole queue levels now back to where they stood in May 2009, according to the Office for National Statistics (UK).

Rob Summers, director of ArchiStaff, a global provider of architectural recruitment for the Institute of Architects, said the number of job positions for architects in Australia picked up dramatically in August and September of this year, in response to government stimulus package work, but has again plateaued with rising interest rates and a roll-back of the stimulus work.

"Recruitment has slowed up a little bit this month, because of interest rates going up, and stimulus programs being slowed. In a profession that is linked to construction, interest rates are immensely important. I don't feel confident that we have seen the back of this downturn yet," he said. "By September 2009 our business was almost back up to levels of September 2008."

In September 2008 the Australian architecture business was growing strongly, then in October it plateaued, before falling in November of 2008 as the global financial crisis hit. "For the next eight months it was very flat, we were operating at 10 to 20 per cent of what we were doing in September 2008."

Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) showed that demand for architects was subdued and, "in line with industry activity", in late 2008 and early 2009. According to the ABS Labour Force Survey, employment of architects and landscape architects grew by less than one per cent between 2007 and 2008, to 19,900 in November 2008.

Summers claims architecture firms reacted too severely to the downturn, "cutting too far, too quick, too deep", before realising that they did not have enough staff to meet the demand created by the government stimulus packages.

Hays Recruitment October 2009 Quarterly Report, also found that demand for candidates with school project experience was up, in direct response to the government stimulus package. " In particular, employers want all-round project architects", it stated.

The report also found that candidates with specialist software skills and experience, particularly new Computer Aided Design (CAD) packages such as Revit software, Smart Architect or Vectorworks, were sought after, it stated: "The growth of demand for REVIT candidates is phenomenal." Summers said during the downturn the number of 'A Grade' candidates applying for jobs was dramatically higher, but those numbers have since declined.

"What we saw was that if we were working on a job we would get a number of responses and of those responses we would be getting 25 to 30 A Grade responses, what we are seeing now is five or 10 A Grade responses for a similar position." He said this was evidence that the supply of job seekers is drying up again and, "we are moving back to being in a position of skills shortage".

The Hays Quarterly Report suggested there would be a consistent increase in the number of temporary architecture roles, and for the first time this year, salaries could increase slightly in certain states.

Olivia Collings

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