Dr Stephen Ziguras of the Brotherhood of St Laurence started the conversation at Vic Flexible Learning Week with his keynote addressing the theme of Labour markets in transition. Pdf of a background paper available here.
Dr Z started with outlining current social and economic themes, the polarisation between work family balance, work rich and work poor families, non-linear life courses. Opportunities are being concentrated within families; due to a shift from past reality - from where one partner worked, now often in well-educated families, both partners work, frequently securing the more highly paid jobs. Opportunities have not necessarily diminished; they are now spread on a different basis through society.
Changing economic conditions have also meant that upfront training no longer is sufficient for whole career.
New risks are emerging:
· uncertain work, uncertain income, uncertain time availability, skills obsolescence due to fast pace of change, early retirement, mental health
· the strong emphasis on interpersonal skills in the workplace and the higher rate of change are placing additional demands on those in and out of the workforce. The uncertainty of casual work can negatively impact on young people’s social lives. Long term unemployed also have a higher incidence of mental health issues than the general population. Increasing social cost of the changing world.
The joint project between the Brotherhood of St Laurence and the University of Melbourne on policy formation is not just about economic aims, but also family and community focus - more flexible pathways for people to ease out of work where they want to, rather than being shut out suddenly. Fairer distribution of paid work -people working overtime and people without paid work.
The notion of “transitional labour markets” comes from Gunter Schmidt (Germany) who defines it as ‘periods during which people move between full time work and other activities such as caring, education and retirement'. These may include:
· Education and employment
· Employment and unemployment
· Precarious and permanent employment
People who are least likely to get into work are those with low skills and qualifications, are divorced or separated and have health issues.
Features of good transitions:
· Mixture of activities
· Contracted or legal entitlement to a pathways of transition
What has the Brotherhood of St Laurence been trying to do?
· Youth transitions program in metro Melbourne and Mornington Peninsula which addresses kids at risk of early school leaving – with the aim of reconnecting or maintaining connections with school or employment. Ongoing contact with a case manager maintains links with schools or other options eg TAFE courses or finding ways to link them into less formal or one to one programs.
Implications for VET of operating in a transitional labour market:
· One of key sources of innovation in industry are TAFE trained staff (Report from NCVER Innovation agents: VET skills and innovation in Australian industries and firms at http://www.ncver.edu.au/publications/1451.html). These tend to be the people at an operational and supervisory level, not those in management.
· Key educational pathways are needed for those at risk of social exclusion
· Flexible learning is great strength of the VET system
· Retraining in middle life is a challenge still to be met, eg for those made redundant through industry changes.
· Questions about generic vs. specialist skills - increasingly people need generic skills, and specialist skills need to change in response to changing environment.
One of the challenges for lifelong learning is how to fund it – Dr Z was talking here about more than just updating skills or a short course – the project has been 'toying around' (his words)with ideas of social insurance and learning accounts – which might be combination of personal, public and business contributions. They would like to see to most contributions go to low income earners (eg reverse of superannuation arrangements where the highest earners put the most in and get the most out of the system). It was also suggested that the learning account could be transferred when changing employment or could be converted leave.
The issue of funding the VET system was also discussed with a strong social equity flavour – eg for those who earn more, the fees are higher, abolishing upfront payments and establishing a HECS style approach of recouping cost when people are earning. Dr Z also suggested that some subjects should be fee-exempt for some groups.