Shortage of celebrants in NSW???

Some of you (maybe one or two) may have heard Newcastle celebrant Kerryn Tippett on the ABC Newcastle Drive show on Monday 14 October (segment starts at 3 minutes and runs about 10 minutes). The ABC wanted to speak to a celebrant about a report released on Monday suggesting there’s a shortage of civil celebrants in New South Wales. Kez rang me for a chat about it, and obviously I have thoughts. Here they are.

The report

Jobs and Skills Australia‘s Occupation Shortage List provides a point-in-time snapshot of which occupations in Australia have enough workers and which ones have shortages. The report is used to inform Federal Government labour marketing and training policy.

An occupation shortage is defined as one when employers are unable to fill or have considerable difficulty filling vacancies for an occupation or cannot meet significant specialised skill needs within that occupation, at current levels of remuneration and conditions of employment and in reasonably accessible locations.

The report is generated from:

• data modelling
• statistical analysis of the labour market (including review of job vacancy advertisements)
• employer and stakeholder surveys
• enagement with:
  • peak bodies
  • industry groups
  • professional associations
  • unions
  • education providers
  • regional representative bodies
• Commonwealth government
• state and territory governments
• Jobs and Skills Councils.

For context, according to the report the occupation with the highest shortage in the country is aged care workers.

A shortage of celebrants?

For some completely unknown reason, the Occupation Shortage List shows a shortage in civil celebrants in New South Wales.

Honestly, I’m completely baffled by this. As of today, 16 October 2024, the AGD’s register of celebrants is showing there are 3245 civil celebrants registered in New South Wales. That’s the most of any state or territory in the country.

According to the latest set of marriage statistics we have available, those for 2023, released in August 2024, 39,018 marriages were registered in New South Wales in 2023.

We know approximately 80% of all marriages are carried out by civil celebrants (including Registry Officers), so let’s say 31,214 civil marriages.

We don’t have the breakdown of how many are conducted by Subdivision C Civil Celebrants and how many by Subdivision B Registry Officers (they’re all counted as civil ceremonies), but let’s hazard a rough guess and say 10% are Registry Office weddings. That leaves 28,092 marriages to be conducted by civil celebrants.

Dividing those weddings by the number of registered celebrants, that’s less than 9 weddings each!

How is that a shortage??? No one can pay their mortgage on 9 weddings a year!

But where exactly is the shortage?

If you listen to Kez on the radio, she makes the excellent point that we’d probably need to drill down a bit to find out WHERE in New South Wales this apparent shortage is. In Sydney or Newcastle you’d probably pass a celebrant in the street wherever you were walking. Perhaps the shortage is in regional or rural New South Wales.

Where did this shortage data come from?

Given there are no job vacancies for celebrants, where on earth did the shortage data come from? Who reported that these shortages exist? Feeling incensed about the entire situation, I wrote to Jobs and Skills Australia to ask.

Hi there

I’m hoping to talk to someone about where the data came from that caused a shortage rating for celebrancy in NSW in today’s Occupation Shortage List.

I’m a full-time celebrant of almost 11 years’ experience and I own and run The Celebrant Institute RTO, teaching the next generation of celebrants through our Cert IV in Celebrancy program.

We have absolutely no indication that there is anything like a shortage in celebrants anywhere in the country, least of all NSW; if anything there are too many celebrants to cover the number of weddings conducted per year.

The report and information on your website seems to suggest the information is gathered from job vacancy listings and feedback from industry bodies; we are all sole traders and there are no job vacancy listings, and as far as I’m aware no celebrant industry bodies were surveyed for this report.

I would really like to speak to someone to better understand where your data has come from

Many thanks

Sarah

To give them credit, they came back to me in less than 24 hours, although the information provided was, to put it politely, sparse. Here it is (emphasis added):

Dear Sarah,

Thank you for your email.

For your background, please note that the sources used to assess occupation shortages are diverse. These include data modelling; additional statistical analysis of labour market data, and employer and stakeholder surveys; and engagements with various stakeholder groups. Feedback is also sought from the Commonwealth Government, state and territory governments, as well as Jobs andSkills Councils.

The occupation rating for New South Wales (NSW) was based on feedback received from NSW government agencies. At the time, we considered the feedback to be of sufficient quality/standard to accept and incorporate into our assessments for occupations. Feedback such as that provided by you is valuable and helps to make a more balanced assessment of the available evidence.

With the above, we welcome you to contribute to the annual stakeholder survey which will open to the public between November and close in February the following year. The survey primarily targets peak bodies, industry groups, professional associations, unions, regional representative bodies, and education and training advisory bodies. However, government agencies, recruitment agencies/labour hire firms, employers and Jobs and Skills Councils are welcome to complete the survey.

If you would like to participate, please let us know, and we will add you to the mailing list. We also welcome you raising awareness of the survey with the industry bodies and other organisations that you are in close contact with.

Kind regards,

Workforce Analysis team

Labour Market Research & Analysis Branch
Jobs and Skills Australia

Naturally I have asked to be added to the mailing list for future stakeholder surveys.

So I’m not really any further along with the mystery than I was on Monday afternoon. The information came from the NSW Government, and JSA decided it was of sufficient quality to inform the rating. I didn’t bother asking them which department in the NSW Government the data came from; I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t have given it to me.

I’m curious as to whether anyone out there has anymore information on this; fill us all in and let us know!