Qualified social workers are in short supply

A press release in Scoop on 8 February 2011 noted that Social Work was a new entry to list of the most ‘in demand’ employees. This is the first time Social Work has entered this list and was shown as one of the top five most sought after employees by Government for the month of January. Furthermore Social Work positions received the least applications per advertisement for these positions.

The Council for Social Work Education Aotearoa/New Zealand (CSWEANZ) that represents Schools of Social Work in New Zealand noted that these figures confirmed what they have known for some time-that is that qualified social workers are in short supply.

CSWEANZ President Lynne Briggs said that ‘there was a need to properly fund social work programmes to ensure that there are enough excellent graduates to meet these roles. We have an aging workforce and we know that there is likely to be a further shortage as many social workers reach retirement age. Briggs also noted that New Zealand trained social workers had been in demand for a number of years and “new graduates were often scooped up by recruitment agencies seeking social workers to work in child protection in Australia and the United Kingdom”.

“The Council thinks it is great that many of our young social work graduates are going overseas and gaining more skills but we do need to have a good pool of young people to take up the challenging and demanding work in social service here in New Zealand” said Briggs.

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