Australian business, technology and union bodies have called for an overhaul of Australia’s apprenticeship system to meet demand for digital skills, ahead of this week's Government jobs and skills summit.
The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), Australian Industry Group, Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Business Council of Australia (BCA) have released a joint statement flagging that apprenticeships and other on-the-job training needs to "reinvigorated, expanded, adapted and supported" to meet workforce needs, including in digital skills.
They also called for increased wage subsidies for apprentices, an updated approach to digital literacy in workplaces, and a lifelong learning strategy that provides better reskilling and upskilling opportunities.
On digital apprenticeships, Business Council of Australia Chief Executive Jennifer Westacott told the ABC on Sunday that “In many respects what we've written today is that it is a job description for Jobs and Skills Australia, we've got to get apprenticeships going again, not just in the in the sparkies and trading area trainees area, but things like digital apprentices."
This follows a call last week by the ACTU and the Tech Council of Australia (TCA) for a new “Australian Digital Apprenticeship”. This would be a one-year program of study and “work integrated learning” delivered through the VET system. It would focus on “key entry level tech jobs such as cybersecurity analyst, business analyst and data analyst”.
The ACTU and TCA want the Government to subsidise course costs and provide a wage subsidy to incentivise employer take-up. This model would involve industry committing to employing a specific number of apprentices with guaranteed diversity quotas.
The proposed Australian Digital Apprenticeship would be developed by industry and “could be funded through the approximately $40 million in contributions that the tech sector makes towards training Australians through the Skilling Australians Fund levy”.
Wage subsidies
The ACTU, Ai Group, ACCI and BCA want more funding for apprenticeships and traineeships, with support for the employer and employee. Support should be provided across all occupations, they argued.
They propose implementing support from the October 2022 Budget to ensure no drop-off in commencements and an improvement in completions.
The business and union group want increased wage subsidies for commencing workers, especially in the first year, and incentive completion payments for employers and apprentices, and mentoring programs for apprentices.
IT providers spoke about the usefulness of wage subsidies at last week’s CRN Pipeline conference on the Gold Coast.
“As trainee wages in the technology industry are quite high, in the past, we often chose to pay extra and obtain someone with the skillset we need,” said David Norris, Managing Director of Nortec IT in Sydney. “With the 50% government subsidy for the first year, taking on a trainee became much more cost-effective.
“It allows us to train someone within the industry – which will add to the technology workforce. Unfortunately, this has ended and reverted back to 10% of the salary paid,” he explained. “I think this was a very effective campaign and would welcome its return and take on another couple of trainees.” Though he suggested there was room for better marketing of trainee subsidies.
Foundational digital skills
The ACTU and business groups also called for more action to ensure Australians gain and maintain foundation digital skills at school and throughout their working lives.
“Foundational skills in language, literacy, numeracy and digital capability should be guaranteed, with funded access for all Australians, including people who missed out at school or need to catch-up later in life,” the group stated.
They want an updated National Foundation Skills Strategy for Adults to recognise the impact that digital transformation is having on the workforce, especially on lower skilled workers in jobs, occupations and industries affected by digital disruption.
A refreshed national language, literacy, numeracy and digital (LLND) skills strategy should include “tangible and realistic KPIs, to ensure state and federal government accountability against universal standards.”
Greater capacity for data collection on LLND to provide more real-time information on the scale of the issue is needed, they argued. The group wants national Foundation Skills initiatives to support companies to deliver LLND training that up-skills and re-skills their employees.
The union and industry group also called for lifelong learning for all Australians and recognition of the skills they acquire as they upskill and reskill throughout their careers. And the want increased delivery and integration of” short, stackable training options, including micro-credentials.” They want support for shorter form credentialing, recognition of prior learning and fit-for-purpose funding mechanisms.
Technology professionals surveyed by the IoT Australia Skills Barometer survey, created with La Trobe University in conjunction with IoT Alliance Australia, preferred short courses.
The survey participants identified security as the primary skill they needed help with. They pointed to integration of new technologies used in IoT with legacy systems as a key challenge.
Immigration
Unsurprisingly, immigration is also on the agenda in the lead up to this week’s Govenment jobs and skills summit. The TCA and ACTU want to speed up consideration of highly skilled, highly paid skilled migration places where there are clear skills shortage – they also want to use this as a way to find coaching expertise.
CRN has heard eye-opening stories about the delays in bringing skilled technology workers into the country – estimates about how long it will take for this situation to resolve vary wildly.
The TCA and ACTU want all technology jobs to have a pathway to permanent migration and commit and clear pathways to permanent residency for all technology jobs.
On migration, the BCA’s Jennifer Westacott told ABC on Sunday that “One of the ideas we put up at the summit is this idea of a Trusted Trainer, so that it if you're a company that can show that you're investing in training, that you're developing your people, you're testing the labour market, that you should be able to kind of get an easier path to getting skilled migrants in and maybe a lower skills levy because you can demonstrate that you're investing in the development of your people.”
The TCA and ACTU also want “improved access to tech jobs for women, people with a disability and indigenous Australians to make sure the full range of Australians can participate in the high-paid, secure jobs of the future.”
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