Numbers of Accounting Students and Available Jobs Don’t Add Up

Australia’s large spike in the accounting overseas students program is placing unprecedented pressure on local accounting graduates.

As reported by Edmund Tadros in today’s Australian Financial Review, international students now dominate accounting courses, making up a record 79% of the 17,600 enrolled postgraduate students in 2013. At the undergraduate level international students made up 55% of more than 25,400 enrolled students. This is despite modest accounting job prospects for both international and domestic students, with today’s report showing local accounting firms inundated with applications for graduateships and job vacancies.

Accountants should not be on our skilled migration list. The claim that Australia is short of accountants is laughable. The level of applicants for each accounting job is the highest of any profession tracked by the Department of Employment.

According to the International Students Strategy for Australia (2010-14), the international education sector has undergone significant change in recent decades. The number of students has grown substantially. The Strategy shows that in 1990 there were 47,000 international students that came to Australia. By 2000 this number had skyrocketed to 188,000. In 2009, nearly 500,000 students were studying in Australia with more than 360,000 starting their courses in that year.

The number of overseas accounting students is making it difficult for young Australian accounting students to find work. The Department of Employment has recommended that accountants be removed from the skilled occupation list, having concluded there is a surplus of accountants and “deteriorating outcomes for graduates…relatively low pay rates for bachelor graduates and weak employment outcomes for masters graduates”.

In 2012, there were 7,200 domestic students that completed a bachelor or higher degree in accounting, with the Commonwealth Department of Employment declaring that “a more than adequate supply of accountants existed in Australia”. In 2009 one immigration Department report identified “significant concerns” in Victoria’s international education sector and “in particular, related pathways to permanent residence”.

Academics from Newcastle Business School, the University of Wollongong and Monash University all point to a surplus of accounting graduates who are struggling to find work. Dr Bob Birrell says there has been no increase in employment in the level of accountants for the past 6 years.

Past predictions that the number will rise have turned out to be wrong, so we would be foolish to take any notice of predictions that the number will rise in future.

The maths are simple here; Australia is encouraging too many foreign accounting students to come and study here through our Skilled Occupation List, when the number of accounting job opportunities, along with infrastructure and services, are simply not adequate to meet this unsustainable growth. The Government should remove accounting from the Skilled Occupation List, which will provide more Australian accounting students with the opportunity to study, find work and have a career in their chosen field.

Original Edmund Tadros AFR Story at:

http://www.afr.com/p/national/professional_services/accounting_still_popular_with_overseas_UKYGjP6Ki7fJgPRfAmCPXJ