Recruitment News Australia

News includes: is PERSOL is getting ready to sell Programmed. The Japanese giant’s 2026 Integrated Report leaves Programmed out entirely.  Across the Tasman, New Zealand’s unemployment rate has climbed to 5.7% even as job ads improve, with casual and fixed-term roles surging and skilled workers still hard to find. Ross and Adele also cover the knife-edge New Zealand election, where a newcomer could end up as kingmaker. Tune in now.

News for Nov 3 2026 features Talent's global COO Megan Woodbury named in SIA's Global Women in Staffing Power 150, JSA's September Recruitment Insights report, the additions and removals from the latest Occupations in Shortage List  and Damien Ross's return to Speller. Question of the Week is "What did we learn at Recruitment United Live?"

News for 27 October 2026 :  the Bullhorn cyberattack that knocked out core systems for agencies worldwide (and the awkward timing of its APSCo awards nomination), the full rundown of APSCo Awards winners with Access Offshoring and Tradewind among the big winners, a leadership shake-up at Miller Leith as Kian Myers jumps ship from Hays Executive, Swipejobs founder Katrina Leslie named Australia’s EY Entrepreneur of the Year off the back of a $1.7 billion revenue year, and a Federal Court ruling that lets a disability discrimination claim proceed against labour-hire firm Zoom Recruitment — a case every agency running on-hire workers should be watching. Tune in now.

We revisit this episode to discuss recruitment prior to the the "fancy" tools we have today. Would you still be successful as a recruiter? Ironically we have our AI host introduce this episode.

Special guest on question of the week

Special guest host Michael Jones answers our question of the week.

News for 29th Sept covers Australia's unemployment rate rise plus SEEK's share price hit a 13-year low. CareerOne has renewed its AI partnership with Decidr for a third year, and  the World Economic Forum reports women hold 65% of chief people officer roles but only 19% of CEO roles, and the Intergenerational Report says rising participation, especially among women and older Australians, will be key to the workforce ahead.

This week in recruitment: job ads are finally moving again. Seek's August report showed ads up  The next jobs data lands on 24 September. On compliance, the regulator is getting tougher: the Fair Work Ombudsman lifted proactive investigations 86%. Behind these headlines, PeopleIN has halved its net debt, Ashley Services posted a 189.5% jump in net profit, and Sinead Hourigan has launched Saoi Advisory.

Listen to one of your favourite Questions of the week in a special recap episode

Extended question of the week this week