Let's get technical, recruiters warn

Australian textile clothing and footwear employers will continue to import technical knowledge unless new skills are developed to meet the rapidly changing textile market, a recruitment expert has warned.

Speaking at the Technical Textiles and Non Woven Association's 'Employment Opportunities in Textiles's seminar earlier this month, the director of specialist recruitment firm Permanser, Michael Harris, said with clothing production increasingly moving offshore, traditional roles within the manufacturing sector were already in limited demand.

"Whereas five to seven years ago we were searching for dye house managers and operatives, loom tuners and weaving managers, today we might get two or three requests a year for those categories."

Instead, Harris said employers were searching for sales people with technical expertise, graphic designers with textile capabilities, quality controllers with textile or garment experience and Chinese language capabilities and senior product developers willing to travel extensively throughout the world.

"The demand in the future will be for well-educated, flexible entrepreneurial people who can add value to their employer companies."

With industry now competing in a wide range of textile markets throughout the world - from bullet-proof technology to heavy duty areas such as automotive and medical - further skills would be demanded from Generation Y fashion graduates, Harris said.

"In terms of development skills and so forth, I think German graduates are better trained.

"The question for us is, can we develop the required skills quickly enough here in Australia or will we need to continue to import technical talent to meet demand?"