Attracting, developing and retaining staff in regional local government: addressing skills shortages in South Australia

Why this matters to people in the regions

Across regional Australia, many communities struggle to find and keep the skilled people who maintain roads, run libraries, plan new housing, and respond when fires or floods strike. This article looks closely at that problem in regional South Australia and asks a simple question with big consequences for everyday life: how can local councils attract, grow, and retain the staff they need so that small towns continue to be liveable, safe, and prosperous places?

The challenge of filling key local jobs

Regional councils in South Australia face a perfect storm in their workforces. Many employees are nearing retirement, too few young people are entering council careers, and demand for specialist skills such as engineers, planners, environmental health officers, and IT professionals keeps rising. Councils often cannot match the pay and career options offered by big-city employers or the private sector. Living in smaller, more remote towns can also mean fewer jobs for partners, limited schooling choices, scarce rental housing, and fewer amenities, all of which make it harder to attract new recruits and convince them to stay.

Looking at why people come, stay, or go

The authors combine ideas from economics and human resources to understand these shortages. They draw on “human capital” thinking, which treats people’s knowledge, experience, and soft skills as valuable assets for both workers and communities. They also adapt “push–pull” models normally used to explain why people move between regions or jobs. In this view, negative push factors inside an organisation—such as heavy workloads, few chances for promotion, or poor support—encourage people to leave, while positive pull factors elsewhere—better pay, more training, or a more attractive town—draw them away. At the same time, features of the broader community, like housing, services, and social connection, strongly shape whether professionals see a regional council role as a long-term option.

Listening to councils on the ground

To move beyond general theory, the research team partnered with the Legatus Group, a network of 15 regional councils covering about 40% of South Australia’s regional population. They ran a focus group with chief executives and senior managers, then followed up with an online questionnaire. Council leaders described difficulties recruiting to specialist and leadership roles, the high cost of repeated advertising and long vacancies, and the strain on remaining staff when positions stay unfilled. They also mapped current responses, such as offering salary packaging and flexible work, experimenting with hybrid arrangements that allow staff to work partly from home, and dabbling in shared recruitment or secondments between neighbouring councils.

What is missing from current efforts

Despite pockets of innovation, the study found big gaps. Attraction campaigns rarely emphasise lifestyle and community benefits in a coordinated way, and support for new arrivals and their families is uneven. Councils do little collectively to market local government careers to school, TAFE, and university students, and regional training options for council-specific roles are thin. Many councils lack clear career pathways, mentoring, or leadership development, particularly for women and other under-represented groups who could help fill skill gaps. Overall, responses tend to be piecemeal and council-by-council, even though the underlying problems are shared across the region.

A joined-up plan for stronger regional workforces

Drawing these insights together, the authors propose an integrated framework built around three main directions. First, councils should cooperate much more closely by sharing human resources services, developing a common recruitment and training platform, and jointly running careers fairs, cadetships, and professional development. Second, they advocate deliberate diversity initiatives to tap underused talent pools—such as women aspiring to leadership, First Nations people, people with disabilities, skilled migrants, retirees, and those seeking flexible or part-time work. Third, they call for long-term workforce planning that anticipates technological change, climate-related crises, and future skill needs, supported by strong partnerships with education and training providers across the region.

What this means for regional communities

In plain terms, the article concludes that no single council can solve regional skills shortages on its own. Instead, regional local governments need to work together, plan ahead, and welcome a broader mix of workers if they are to keep essential services running and adapt to new pressures. By treating people’s skills as a shared regional asset and building smart, cooperative strategies for recruitment, development, and retention, regional councils can better safeguard the everyday services and infrastructure that communities rely on—and help ensure that life in country towns remains attractive for current and future generations.

Citation: Cameron, R., Burgess, J. & Macdonald, A. Attracting, developing and retaining staff in regional local government: addressing skills shortages in South Australia. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 13, 341 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-026-06545-0

Keywords: regional workforce, local government, skills shortages, human resources, South Australia