Regional Australia Can Hardly Retain Staff Amid Rising Expenses

A parliament hearing has highlighted the ongoing challenges for regional Australia to retain skilled workers, prompting calls for fair and sustainable federal funding. Andrew Bryan, CEO of Kalgoorlie-Boulder City—one of Western Australia’s largest regional governments—shared concerns about the high turnover of local government staff in his area, located 600 km east of Perth. “Two years ago, we were talking around the 40 percent turnover … We’ve dropped that down to probably high 20s now over the last two years, and we’re still running a bit over 20 percent vacancy rate at the moment,” he told the committee at the Regional Development, Infrastructure, and Transport hearing on Aug. 28....