There’s a constant in Australian defence: not enough people. In peacetime, the defence organisation’s difficulties with recruitment are an ongoing saga, occasionally surfacing in headlines like ‘Sailor shortage strands Australian warship HMAS Perth in dry dock for two years’. With less drama, ASPI’s Marcus Hellyer revealed real problems reaching workforce objectives; since 2016, the number of Australian Defence Force personnel has risen by only 600 against a target of 1,730.

In wartime, it’s even worse. In both world wars, Australia’s defence workforce reached capacity. At the end of the day, Australia has a small population, yet it has big ambitions and wants to punch above its weight. Constraints from a workforce of limited size are inevitable.

It may get worse. Australia is a small country living in, as Coral Bell termed it, a neighbourhood of giants. Unexpected events can make it smaller, as happened with the pandemic and the government’s call to temporary visa holders to leave. Hundreds of thousands who were in the workforce at the start of 2020 have left and it’s been suggested that about 600,000 will be gone by year’s end.

An former immigration official recently said, ‘We could be on the verge of the biggest percentage and absolute decline in our population since 1788’. It may take years to get back to the population size Australia had four months ago. All of this will accelerate the demographic ageing of Australia’s overall workforce. The pool of younger people the ADF can recruit from will become even smaller.

These developments will not help Defence with its workforce issues, in peace or war. A smaller Australian workforce affects all sectors. None will be immune.

Please click here to read the full “The case for automated airbases in a post-pandemic Australia” article published at The Strategist, written by Griffith Asia Institute, visiting fellow, Dr Peter Layton