Procurement is your Profession - Say it on the Census

02 Aug 2011

CIPS Australasia is running a campaign encouraging procurement professionals to clearly state procurement as their profession in the ‘occupation’ section of the Census form on Census night, 9 August.

CIPSA Managing Director Jonathan Dutton said, “Procurement can officially become the fastest growing profession in Australia – simply by galvanising CIPSA members and the broader procurement community to describe their exact occupation as procurement on the Census form.

“If we can utilise the Census to have procurement classified by the federal government as a fully-fledged profession and, even, a special occupation critical to the economic strength of the country, from there we can re-apply for entry to the special migration list, and help in one more way to address the skills shortage and talent scarcity so prevalent in procurement

“We will also be on the 'fast-track' to developing greater government support for our profession,” he said.

The ‘My Occupation is Procurement - Say it on the Census’ campaign simply calls on procurement professionals to ensure they write ‘Procurement’ as their occupation when completing the personal information section of the Census.

Throughout the campaign CIPSA has stated clearly that everyone has a legal obligation when completing the Census to ensure that the information provided is not false or misleading.

Mr Dutton said, “What we are asking is for people to ensure that, where it is legitimate and accurate to do so, they use the word ‘procurement’ in describing their occupation.”

While job titles can differ across industries, the core element of ‘procurement’ should be a constant: (simply ‘procurement’ or ‘procurement manager’, ‘procurement executive’, ‘procurement officer’ etc)

“When the last census was taken in 2006, less than 300 people listed ‘Procurement’ as their profession. We have grown in size, influence and importance in the five years since then – and we can prove it by making a concerted statement about ourselves and our profession,” Mr Dutton said.

“We need several hundred procurement professionals to do this but several thousand would be better – so please spread the word. Speak to your procurement colleagues and let them know of the campaign we are running and what we are trying to achieve.”