Megan Lilly, General Manager Education and Training with the Australian Industry Group, previously Executive Manager at Business Services Training Australia spoke from the industry perspective. Megan explained that from industry perspective, transitional labour markets should also include from employment to employment - maintaining and managing skills sets and job transitions.
She argued that the wealth generating industries are still the production and manufacturing sectors, not the service sector. In addition there are no reliable indicators for skills shortages - many taken from newspapers, despite the reality that not all employers actually advertise. Vacancies do exist for skilled workers. Australian industry also faces some unknown challenges; the emergence of the Chinese economy will change the world economy forever - almost beyond belief. 37 new airports are under construction today!
The relationship between transitional labour markets and casual work
· Casual work not a problem in itself where people are voluntary casuals
· Casual work is really a problem where people can't progress beyond that and they want to.
· Casual work is a real alternative to no work.
Skills shortages creates highly mobile workforce with many options to choose from. Most people stay with their trade for about 7 years so need to consider that in planning to address shortages.
An example of an adopt-a-school program between the motorbody industry and schools was described – this was driven by industry where industry approached a school each to work on a solar car challenge project, focussing on year 9 at risk students. It involved a large time commitment and very strong involvement from senior management and has led to a strong relationship between schools and enterprises. Begun in 2003, the program has continued this year, has extended to formal workplace learning, school based apprenticeships, careers advice, and employment opportunities.
VET and transitional labour markets:
Focus from VET needs to be on skills formation not qualifications. There is increasing demand from industry for increased flexibility from the training system, more focus on the workplace, and a growing need for generic skills and employability skills.
Skills sets need to be reconfigured endlessly – structure around the component parts or job functions, not qualifications as the level.
Megan mentioned the “World class skills for World class Industries" report which is available from the Australian Industry Group website here along with many other publications. Another thing for my reading list.