New Australian workforce agency to target graduate shortage areas

Australia’s new workforce forecasting agency could boost universities’ chances of securing funds to address looming shortfalls of critical professional skills.

The fledgling Labor government has signalled its intent to tackle skills gaps by introducing a bill to establish the agency, Jobs and Skills Australia, as one of its first legislative acts. The bill was the first tabled in the new parliament’s second sitting day after a largely ceremonial opening day.

In its initial stages, Jobs and Skills Australia will differ little from the agency it is replacing – the National Skills Commission – which has a similar advisory and skills forecasting role.

The government has promised “extensive consultation” on the agency’s functions, structure and governance, which will be enshrined in future legislation.

Like many northern hemisphere counterparts, Australia faces mounting shortages of professionals and skilled technicians. Covid-19, which accelerated the pivot to new technologies under the fourth industrial revolution, has also interrupted flows of the skilled migrants that Western countries rely on to produce and operate these technologies.

Before the May election, universities warned of economic carnage if they were not funded to meet a burgeoning need for graduates to work in areas such as manufacturing, defence, energy and health. In a series of reports, the Group of Eight said Australia needed to double its output of domestically educated engineers and train at least 1,000 more homegrown doctors a year.

Such pleas failed to gain traction with the former coalition government, while its Labor successor – saddled with a trillion-dollar debt – has avoided making the sector any expensive promises. But it has scheduled a Jobs and Skills Summit in Parliament House on the first two days of September, and is acting quickly to set up the new agency as a mark of faith.

Representative body Universities Australia vowed to be “constructive partners” with the agency. Chief executive Catriona Jackson said: “Of the million new jobs that will be created in Australia over the next five years, 53 per cent are going to need a university degree."

The new agency has been linked primarily with the vocational education and training (VET) sector. Its remit includes analysis of VET funding requirements.

But it appears unlikely to continue the National Skills Commission’s work of pressing the states and territories to adopt uniform fees and subsidies for training courses. This could free its hand to focus more on skills taught by universities.

Tertiary education consultant Claire Field said the new agency would make shortages of those skills “more visible” by expanding the work of the National Skills Commission. While the commission had focused on skill needs relevant to both the higher education and vocational sectors, “it suffered in part because the rest of its activities were so heavily focused on VET”.

But Robin Shreeve, who headed a labour market intelligence organisation called the Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency until it was axed by the coalition in 2014, said governments of both persuasions squandered money and corporate memory setting up and abolishing bodies “which perform broadly similar functions”.

“Each government coming in has to put their own mark on the agency,” Mr Shreeve said. “If it wasn’t invented by them, it’s no good.”

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com