00:00Victoria Police on the front line of a major recruitment drive, and they're not alone.
00:08Search police careers.
00:13The thin blue line is being stretched across the country.
00:17Aging workforce, people will leave for other opportunities.
00:20We realise some people are leaving for other police jurisdictions as well.
00:23Victoria Police needs to recruit 800 officers.
00:27New South Wales, 1,500.
00:30South Australia set a target of 900 extra boots on the beat by 2026.
00:35The Northern Territories Police Association President has said the top end needs 200 more.
00:41While Tasmania bucks the trend with no vacancies, Queensland has 804.
00:47And Western Australia is aiming to recruit 750 officers from overseas.
00:53We're all facing similar challenges.
00:55We're all looking at what we're each doing to try and entice people, let's say.
01:00Methods differ across the country.
01:02Victoria Police has attracted thousands of people to its career expo this weekend.
01:07Queensland's offering lucrative financial incentives to move there.
01:12New South Wales doubled applications by paying recruits to train.
01:16While the WA Police Force is targeting officers in the UK, Ireland and New Zealand.
01:22So far it's received more than 1,700 applications.
01:26But the UK is facing a police shortage of its own, as is France and the USA.
01:32Overseas regularly we're getting reach in at the moment around what are we doing to recruit.
01:36Everybody's looking, everybody's facing challenges.
01:39The competition for new recruits isn't just between jurisdictions,
01:43but industries as Australia grapples with its ongoing labour shortage.
01:48Data shows the squeeze is easing.
01:51Applications to Victoria Police from 18 to 21 year olds have gone up by 65% in the past six months.
01:58And there are hundreds of recruits in training across the country.
02:02The challenge, once they're trained, is retention.
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