Apprenticeship Commencements & Completions Surge in Australia

The following is an excerpt from an with Interview on 2CC Breakfast by Stephen Cenatiempo with The Hon Stuart Robert MP, Minister for Employment, Workforce, Skills, Small and Family Business

“Yeah, we need to look at both. And the great thing about the numbers yesterday from the National Centre for Vocational Education and Research shows apprenticeships surging right across the board, it comes at the same time as we have the highest number of trade apprentices since records have been commenced, since 1963, 220,000. But more importantly, completions are up 21 per cent as well.

And completions have been a real challenge – they’ve been a challenge for 10, 20, 30 years. Because mostly young Australians, they start an apprenticeship, then they find a job or they change their mind. And all that’s great, but we want to actually get tradespeople finishing, and that’s the great thing – 21 per cent surge in that, that’s outstanding.”