Industry insights on skills needs
The Personal Services IRC’s 2019 Skills Forecast acknowledges the importance of technical skills in order to perform job tasks, however a range of soft skills were highlighted as key priority skills for those involved in the Personal Services industry (including Hairdressing), including:
- Teamwork and communication
- Emotional intelligence
- Resilience, stress tolerance and flexibility
- Self-management
- Creativity.
In addition, the following generic skills were highlighted as key for the Personal Services industry (inclusive of Hairdressing):
- Customer service / Marketing
- Communication / Collaboration including virtual collaboration/ Social intelligence
- Design mindset / Thinking critically / System thinking / Solving problems
- Learning agility / Information literacy / Intellectual autonomy and self-management
- Language, Literacy and Numeracy (LLN).
The job vacancy information incorporates both the Hairdressing and Beauty Services industries as more specific industry information is unavailable. According to job vacancy data, Justcuts Incorporated was identified as the top employer, with the top occupations in demand as Hairdresser and Beauty Therapist.
Due to the proportion of hair and beauty services provided at home, exact employment data for the industry is hard to access, however a report by the South Australian Training and Skills Commission estimates that for South Australia there are approximately 6,500 workers across the hair and beauty sector.
The Australian Government Job Outlook suggests a moderate future growth for Hairdressing jobs, which may be part driven by a range of factors identified in the South Australian Training and Skills Commission report, including: increased community image consciousness creating additional demand; and salons diversifying into beauty, nails, make-up and massage services. The industry, however, is not without challenges, with this aforementioned report also highlighting the following: competition from home hair and beauty products, especially through discount pharmacies, supermarkets and the internet; emergence of personal hair and beauty imagery on Instagram and DIY through online videos; and decreasing size of the average salon which creates apprenticeship placement and skill development challenges.
The Personal Services IRC’s 2019 Skills Forecast highlights that future growth in the Hairdressing industry is expected to be driven, in part, by the rise in popularity of specialised male grooming salons and organic salons. Further, the Personal Services IRC’s 2018 Skills Forecast suggested the growing male customer base in this sector, along with the revival of the barbershop, is making an impact on hairdressing and the associated skill requirements. Workers need skills in facial hair grooming and wet shaving to obtain roles in this growing market. Some of those working as Barbers have spent many years in the profession and will not consider obtaining a qualification as they feel they are at a higher skill level. In addition, a report by the Retail and Personal Services Training Council (RAPS) highlights that the barbering sector has reported a shortage of qualified barbers, and that cutting skills are reported to be at a low level across the industry.
The Personal Services IRC’s 2019 Skills Forecast also identified a range of challenges and opportunities faced by the Hairdressing industry, primarily relating to skills shortages, attraction and retention of workers and government policy / legislation changes.
Skills shortages are being experienced across the Hairdressing industry, with businesses struggling to find skilled and experienced staff. Concerns have been raised that Graduates being trained through the VET system are not meeting employer expectations, generally due to inadequate training materials and the uptake of short, condensed and/or non-accredited training. This is further compounded by many students being unable to develop real work experience during their training, which is largely attributed to salons tending not to hire apprentices (because of the considerable constraints they face as employers), and the rise in popularity of home-based salons.
The challenges associated with attracting new workers to the Personal Services industry are in part attributed to influencers such as teachers, school career advisors and parents discouraging young people from pursuing a career in the industry due to the occupations not being valued as providing feasible career pathways.
According to the report New traineeships aim to address hair and beauty skills shortages, TAFE NSW and industry association HABA (Hair & Beauty Australia) are working together to address these skills shortages by offering a traineeship program which will combine a Certificate II in Salon Assistant with on-the-job experience.
A lack of appropriate regulation and inconsistent standards between states and territories has not only created space for the growth of unregulated home-based salons, but also inconsistency in training between jurisdictions. For example, in New South Wales, South Australia and Tasmania, salons must be operated by a registered hairdresser, however in Victoria anyone can operate a salon (unless they want to hire an apprentice, then they must be qualified), while in the Northern Territory, Queensland and Australian Capital Territory there are no operating restrictions apart from the stipulation that apprentices and trainees must always be supervised. The Personal Services IRC’s 2019 Skills Forecast is calling on licencing and regulation to be reintroduced to the Hairdressing industry.
The Australian Hairdressing Council released the results of an Industry survey on the impact of COVID-19 on business, staff and mental health. Some of the key findings included:
- 75% of businesses closed due to COVID
- 20.4% of salons terminated staff during the pandemic
- 79.4% of business owners experienced stress due to uncertainty during 2020 while 36.5% suffered mental health issues and 23.1% from depression
- 46.2% have employed a new apprentice in the last 12 months, while 40.3% have not
- 22.5% found staff to be servicing clients outside of the salon.
Some of the main industry concerns listed in the survey included the volume of hairdressers working from home since COVID, End of Lease Agreement leading to rent hikes, hairdressers leaving the industry for better paying jobs and the 1.5 metre rule’s impact on business.
The ABC report New push to give Australia's hairstylists formal training to help deal with customers' problems reveals hairdressers are exposed to clients facing problems like family violence, mental health and trauma, often amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic. With the Royal Commission into Family Violence finding that family violence could be identified early through individuals having hair and beauty care, the Hair Stylists Association (HSA) is pushing for Industry to provide students with the training and support to know how to better deal with those situations when they arise.
