CEO’s message

Instinctually, mechanics problem-solve. It’s central to the profession. People come to you with an issue and it’s your job to fix it—to get their car back on the road and to send the customer away happy.

Many problems require methodical diagnosis and precision fixes. Others require more inventive but no less effective solutions (I’m reminded of the guys on the iconic ABC TV show Bush Mechanics, who fixed a flat tyre by stuffing it with spinifex grass).

As I write this, our industry is grappling with a problem that requires both a specific and an innovative response if we’re to solve it. Of course, I’m talking about the skills shortage. According to our friends at the Australian Automotive Aftermarket Association, Australia alone is some 25,000 to 30,000 technicians short right now. Anecdotally, our field team has heard countless stories from Members about their struggles to find the qualified technicians their businesses need to operate.

Over the winter months, Capricorn surveyed over 1800 Members across Australia and New Zealand in a bid to understand this problem in more detail. The result is the State of the Nation Special Report: The Skills Shortage. In this special report, we’ve focused entirely on one issue which reveals, in detail, the scale of the skills shortage problem we face.

More than half of Members (51%) said finding good staff was their biggest challenge to running their business (up from 39% in 2022). Just 44% of Members said they were adequately staffed. The lack of qualified staff was seen as the biggest challenge for the industry overall (61%, up from 50% in 2022).

Unsurprisingly, Members reported this shortage having a big impact on their businesses, with commercial truck, panel and paint, tyre and suspension and larger workshops (with more than five technicians) most affected. A backlog of jobs, increased pressure, longer hours, longer turnaround times and reduced productivity were all common consequences of this skills shortage.

But it’s far from all doom and gloom. The report also reveals the positive steps Members are already taking to resolve the skills shortage problem where they can. The number of Members who have ever employed an apprentice is up from 64% in 2022 to 73% in 2023, helping secure the industry’s pipeline of talent. There are also other solutions we’re yet to embrace, including sponsoring the immigration of skilled workers. State of the Nation Special Report: The Skills Shortage will look at this option in detail, too.

While the skills shortage is an issue that’s still with us, the problem has been diagnosed and, all across the industry, Members are working to fix it—because that’s what we do when we see a problem!

You can dive deeper into our findings on the skills shortage in this edition of Ignition, and through the State of the Nation Special Report: The Skills Shortage website at cap.coop/son-23.