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A tradesperson resigns. You counter. He stays. Six months later he leaves anyway, and you have paid more for the privilege.
That is the usual shape, and it is worth understanding why - from both sides of the conversation.
Because replacing the person is expensive and slow. Half of technician and trades occupations are in national shortage, and 67 of them have been persistently short since 2021 (Jobs and Skills Australia). Losing a good technician means a vacancy in a market where you may not fill it.
A counter-offer is a rational reaction to that. The problem is what it usually contains.
Because the money was rarely the actual reason.
The stated reason for leaving is almost always money, because money is the socially comfortable reason. It does not require anyone to say "my foreman is difficult" or "I have not learned anything in two years" or "I am on call every second week and my partner has had enough".
So the counter-offer addresses the stated reason and leaves the real one untouched.
Picture a refrigeration technician who resigns citing pay. He is countered with $8,000 and accepts. The on-call roster does not change, because nobody mentioned the on-call roster. Five months later he leaves for a role paying less than the counter-offer, and his employer concludes that counter-offers do not work.
They worked exactly as designed. They were aimed at the wrong target.
The second failure mode: the counter-offer proves the money was always available. A technician who has to resign to get paid properly now knows that asking does not work and resigning does. That is a lesson with a shelf life.
When the reason was genuinely money, and genuinely fixable. Sometimes a good technician is simply underpaid relative to a market that moved - and given that only 1% of employers adjusted remuneration in 2023 in response to shortages (JSA), this is more common than it should be. Correcting a genuine underpayment is not a counter-offer, it is an overdue correction, and those hold.
When it is not just money. A counter that changes the roster, the reporting line, the work mix, or adds a named progression step is addressing something real.
When it is honest about why it took a resignation. "You are right, we were behind the market, and we should have fixed it before you had to ask" is a conversation that can survive. Silence on that point is not.
Ask what they would need to stay, before you name a number. The answer tells you whether a counter-offer is even the right instrument.
Then ask yourself whether you would have offered it unprompted. If not, you are paying to delay the departure rather than prevent it.
And check the market number. In Brisbane, electricians sit at $100,000-$120,000 and fire technicians at $110,000-$120,000. In Melbourne, refrigeration technicians sit at $100,000-$110,000 (SEEK, 1 September 2026). If your person is well under the band for their trade and city, the resignation was earned.
Be honest with yourself about your actual reason for leaving. If it is money and the counter fixes it, taking it can be entirely rational - especially if the new role was a lateral move.
If the reason was the roster, the supervisor, or going nowhere, a pay rise does not touch any of it, and you will be back in this position by autumn having burned the goodwill of the employer you turned down.
And expect the counter. If you are good, it is coming. Decide what you will say before you walk into the room, not during.
Counter-offers fail when they answer the stated reason instead of the real one. They work when they fix something structural, or when they are an overdue correction honestly acknowledged.
HJ Recruitment places permanent electrical, plumbing, HVAC and refrigeration, fire and solar tradespeople with Australian employers. We ask candidates what would make them stay before we take them to market, because a counter-offer nobody saw coming wastes everyone's time.
Sources- Jobs and Skills Australia - Current skills shortages- SEEK - Electrician salary, Brisbane- SEEK - Fire Technician salary, Brisbane
