Jobs and skills summit must focus on the long term – comment by CEO Jenny Dodd

“The gift of near full-employment” is how the current environment was described recently in the Australian Financial Review (15 July 2022). The fact that nearly every Australian who wants a job can get one is something in this two-plus years of disruptive pandemic conditions we must be grateful for and commend those who created the conditions that have made this possible. As we know, work is fundamental to individual purpose, and those of us who have lived through high levels of unemployment, especially youth unemployment, appreciate how important full employment is.

However, there is a flip side, and the jobs and skills summit must address the long-term issues. Those who are leaders of vocational education and training know that, traditionally, individuals invest less in their skills development during full employment. With acute labour shortages individuals can secure employment and often defer their investment in skills development. Of course, apprentices and trainees have a contract with their employer as they study and that does not apply to them. However, apprentices and trainees do not form most of the learner population of a TAFE.

Thus, in periods of full employment TAFEs experience soft demand in many courses. These courses generally include those industries where there is low market entry in terms of the value industry places on qualifications, for example the hospitality industry. This is an expected outcome and has been evident over many cycles. However, for the first time TAFE is experiencing low demand in industry areas not previously subject to such swings, such as the health industry. This is a concern, given the critical need for high level skills in this vital industry.

We know that the future of work requires higher level skills. In the recent successful NCVER No Frills online conference the opening speaker, Sophie Renton from McCrindle Research, stated “The world of work is changing, so too is the pathway to prepare students for it. Investing in lifelong learning to embrace new skills and refresh existing ones is increasingly important to future proof careers”.

While the jobs and skills summit will no doubt endorse greater skilled migration to fill current skilled workforce needs, so too it must spend time on long term solutions. To date, lifelong learning has usually been left just to the individual in terms of their career trajectory. The difference between now and in previous cycles must be what does lifelong learning look like in partnerships between employers and unions and the tertiary education sector.

There are some questions that need to be asked. How do we collectively generate demand by individuals for investment in their own education and skills development? What are the solutions that will provide benefit to our society and economy for the long run? What are the constraints in terms of policy, funding, structure and regulation that maybe restricting the tertiary education sectors’ ability to partner with each other, and with employers, as higher-level skills become even more important in the future?