Geoscientist employment prospects stall in Australia

Rigzone/13 November 2017

Employment prospects for geoscientists in Australia have remained unchanged since March, according to the latest quarterly survey conducted by the Australian Institute of Geoscientists (AIG).

The national unemployment rate amongst Australia’s professional geoscientists, as at September 30, was 12.2 percent, up slightly from the June 30 figure of 11.3 percent. Underemployment amongst self-employed geoscientists for the same period, however, fell to 18 percent from 19 percent.

The combined figures point to no improvement in employment prospects for the geoscience professions as a whole since March, AIG confirmed in an organization statement.

“Australian geoscientists were looking forward to an improvement in the employment situation in the September survey due to what appeared to be improved sentiment amongst professional geoscientists,” said AIG spokesperson Andrew Waltho in an organization release.

“The survey results, however, don’t contain any good news,” he added.

Almost 62 percent of unemployed and underemployed geoscientists reported not having worked or achieved their desired workload for more than 12 months and the proportion of geoscientists considering leaving the profession increased from 5.9 percent in June to 7.1 percent in the latest survey.

News Source: Rigzone