Bunnings skimped on staff super for nine years, Aussie job vacancies dry up, and more top news

The news Australian professionals are talking about now, curated by LinkedIn’s editors. Join the conversation in the comments below.

Bunnings has blamed a coding error for the underpayment of staff superannuation over the past nine years. The blunder reportedly impacts part-time workers who are owed "less than $200" each, according to Nine. Bunnings said it would make this back payment, and pay an undisclosed amount in compensation to affected employees within four to six weeks. Bunnings is the latest in a long line of Australian companies that have been found to have underpaid their staff. Here’s what people are saying. 

There's been another ominous sign for Australia's economy — the number of job vacancies has fallen for the first time in five years. According to the ABS, the slowdown was mostly felt in NSW and Victoria. The number of vacancies dropped 1.4% over the year to August, with this the first annual decline since February 2014. Private sector vacancies dropped 2.4%, but public sector vacancies actually grew 10.8%. This suggests significant weakness outside of the government sector. Here’s what people are saying. 

Opponents of Norwegian energy giant Equinor’s proposal to drill for oil in the Great Australian Bight say the contentious plan won't provide the bounty of jobs for South Australia the company had prophesied, Bloomberg reports. The drilling is set to face strong opposition from environmental groups, which say the deep water and perilous conditions mean the odds of an oil spill are greatly increased, and that the jobs created would mostly be fly-in fly-out roles for technical experts unlikely to permanently relocate. Here’s what people are saying.

When the Australian Football League expanded into western Sydney, most deemed it “a fool’s errand,” The Age writes. But this weekend, eight years after the GWS Giants' inception, the expansion team will compete in the AFL Grand Final in front of 100,000 spectators. The Giants now boast a 30,000-strong membership, surpassing every Sydney-based rugby league club. More tellingly, the AFL says the Giants help bring in $54 million annually in additional revenue created by the expansion club’s inclusion in its TV rights deal. Here’s what people are saying.

One in five people would replace their boss with a robot. That figure rises to 30% if the robot is a friendly one like C-3PO from “Star Wars”. That’s according to a poll by LEADx, the startup behind an AI-powered executive coach, which found that respondents who preferred robots cited reasons such as a dislike of their bosses and their lack of people skills and empathy. Those who wanted to keep a human manager said they doubted the abilities of robots, or even feared them. Here’s what people are saying.

Idea of the Day: Develop your own leadership style, Merryck & Co. Mentor Laurel Richie tells Managing Director Adam Bryant.

“The really hard work is the introspection ?— to look at what kind of a leader you are and want to be, and to determine the guiding principles that you want to adopt as your personal leadership style.”

What's your take on today’s stories? Share your thoughts in the comments.

— Andrew Murfett