Graduate ‘suitability gap’ exacerbates professional shortages

Some of Australia’s most critical skill shortages arise not because a lack of graduates but because employers do not find them “suitable”, according to the head of the national labour advisory agency.

Peter Dawkins, acting commissioner of Jobs and Skills Australia (JSA), said professionals requiring bachelor’s degrees – especially civil, mining and mechanical engineers and engineering managers – suffered from a “suitability gap” where employers had an “above average” choice of qualified applicants, but did not like what they saw.

They felt that the applicants lacked work experience or employability skills, according to JSA’s survey of employers who had recently advertised for staff. “Simply increasing the throughput of graduates is not a solution here,” said Professor Dawkins, a former vice-chancellor of Victoria University in Melbourne.

He said universities needed to find ways to “generate” the employability attributes that recruiters wanted. “Work-integrated learning, work placements, cadetships [and] higher apprenticeships or degree apprenticeships look like very promising avenues to pursue,” he told the National Press Club in Canberra.

JSA, which was established soon after the Labor government’s election win last year, has released a trio of reports on Australia’s current, emerging and future skills needs. Professor Dawkins said the agency’s annual assessment of skills shortages had found that the proportion of occupations lacking workers had almost doubled to 36 per cent over the past two years.

While shortages were most common among technicians and trade workers like electricians, fitters, motor mechanics and carpenters, they were also “pronounced” – and growing particularly strongly – among university-trained professionals such as nurses, general practitioners, information technology specialists and “various types of engineers”.

Professor Dawkins said about 2 million more people would be employed in Australia a decade from now, with “all industries” expected to grow and particularly strong demand for professionals, managers and community and personal service workers.

Around half of the additional positions would require degrees with another 44 per cent needing vocational education and training (VET) qualifications. “What does all this mean for our VET and higher education systems over the next decade? Well, they’re basically going to be needed more than ever,” he said.

Professor Dawkins said the “ambitious agenda” outlined in JSA’s “roadmap” report would foster a “virtuous cycle” where investments in education and training provided a “fiscal dividend – through increased productivity and participation – which helps to pay back the cost of the upfront investment”.

Universities Australia said the reports underlined the need for funding certainty. “We are relied on to educate the skilled workers our economy needs more of, but we can’t keep doing our job for the nation without the right policies and funding,” said chief executive Catriona Jackson.  

“Consistent changes to policy and funding settings have resulted in caps on university places, confused market signals for students and a lack of investment in infrastructure and research.”

The Australian Technology Network endorsed the roadmap’s proposal for an “integrated approach” to tertiary education. “If we ensure universal access to post-secondary education, it will provide broad benefits for the country,” said executive director Luke Sheehy.

The JSA survey also found that just one in 100 employers had boosted their pay offers after failing to fill vacancies. “There are extensive persistent skills shortages in our labour market,” Professor Dawkins noted. “Upward wage adjustments could be useful.”

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com