Are you looking for health sector work in 2016?

Recruitment firm Hays says most employment opportunities this year can be found in the aged care and disability sectors, and in Australia’s regional and remote areas.

Hays healthcare regional director Mark de Vink said the greatest demand is for nursing staff in aged care, where employers are seeking experienced assistants-in-nursing (AINs), registered nurses (RN), clinical care coordinators, case managers and clinical managers.

“Aged care is where new opportunity exists. It is also moving away from the traditional aged care facility to in-home care as well,” he said.

“If you wanted to consider shifting into an aged care environment, I would think you’d have a number of options at your feet.”

Mr de Vink said 2016 is shaping up as a good year for health jobseekers - the Federal Government has lifted its permanent hiring freeze while the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is set to be fully rolled out from July, and will eventually cater for more than 460,000 Australians with a disability.

Organisations in the disability sector are beginning to recruit additional staff for the NDIS, with particular demand for service coordinators, home care assessors, case managers and client services facilitators.

Mr de Vink said there’s also a large demand for nurse managers and nurse educators.

“We’ve seen an increased number of high end roles with a number of Director of Nursing (DoN) roles, and a lot of nurse audit roles as well coming into audit facilities - where RN level people can come in and do audits for the sites to be audited and passed,” he said.

“We are also getting nurse educator roles, so there’s a lot of demand for nurses to do non-clinical work at the moment.

“A lot of the insurance providers are recruiting nurse educators. We’re seeing quite a bit in that space - we had one campaign where we had 20 RNs working for one organisation in educator roles,” he said.

“People that have gone for the nurse educator roles are often those who aren’t wanting to do the shift work anymore or who are burnt out a little bit but this way, they can still be in their relevant field.”

Radiographers and sonographers are in continuous demand in cities while there’s an extreme shortage of allied health professionals, particularly experienced physiotherapists, psychologists and occupational therapists, in the Northern Territory.

“There’s always demand for allied health and we’re still seeing heightened levels of demand outside the capital cities, even regionally they are very difficult to fill,” Mr de Vink said.

“We’re aware that there are shortages in most areas but there certainly seems to be big shortages in physios.

“In WA and in the more remote areas, in the Pilbara, there’s been a huge demand for physiotherapists and speech pathologists.”

Mr de Vink said employers are also seeking Indigenous registered nurses for niche and specialised roles in the Northern Territory.