Category: Apprenticeships Growth & Trends

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Governments are being urged to broaden their focus beyond trade apprenticeships to other occupations in business, hospitality, aged care and childcare to address labour shortages across Australia.

Higher education researcher Peter Hurley from the Mitchell Institute at Victoria University said while job vacancies in occupations relating to trade apprenticeships and traineeships had grown, they represented only about 10 to 17 per cent of total vacancies advertised on the internet. The federal government has reported the largest increases in job advertisements in December were for hospitality, carers and aides and food trades workers.

“Apprenticeships and traineeships are excellent examples of pathways into work that have proven to be effective. But they are specific to certain occupations,” Dr Hurley said.

Dr Hurley said apprentices and trainees made up about 10 per cent of the pathways people take into the workforce. He said policymakers needed to create better vocational education and training (VET) courses to give young people stronger options outside universities and apprenticeships.

“Young people are going to university and doing apprenticeships in record numbers but there is a need for other high quality options,” he said.

“One of the biggest issues with VET is ensuring government funds are going where students are receiving the best quality courses, as opposed to increasing quantity of provision.”
Mitchell Evans (left) and Jordan Stansfield are apprentices at Volvo Parramatta. There has been a growth in apprenticeships including for mechanics.

Mitchell Evans (left) and Jordan Stansfield are apprentices at Volvo Parramatta. There has been a growth in apprenticeships including for mechanics.Credit:Lyndal Irons

National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) data shows that 3.9 million people were enrolled in vocational education and training last year, but up to 2.4 million of those were in short courses such as first aid and construction safety.

New national figures have shown an increase in the take-up of apprenticeships and traineeships in trades. Completion rates picked up in the June quarter 2021, but not enough to make up for bigger falls over recent years.

A spokesman for Employment, Workforce and Skills Minister Stuart Robert said the government had provided more than $7 billion in funding to boost apprenticeships and traineeships.

“We start 2022 with almost half a million job-ready Australians skilling up or skilled up with well over 270,000 JobTrainer enrolments and the highest level of trade apprentices on record with 220,000 in training,” he said.

Dr Hurley said while the federal government had made a big investment in apprentices and trainees, they were “only a part of skills policy”.

“Investing in employer subsidies for apprentices/trainees, while absolutely welcome and important, does not really address the larger skills problem,” he said.

(NCVER) data shows that in 2020, compared with 2019, government-funded full-year training equivalents decreased by 10 per cent to 494,100 and domestic fee for service full-year training decreased by 2.7 per cent to 387,500.

NSW Labor leader Chris Minns said while there had been an increase in-training and completion numbers from the June 2020 quarter to June 2021, numbers for the whole year were down for completions.

“The decline has hit across all sectors in the past year with a 12 per cent decrease in construction trades workers, 18.9 per cent decrease in food trades workers and a 20.2 per cent decrease in skilled animal and horticultural workers,” he said.

NSW Minister for Skills and Training Alister Henskens said the state government had provided free apprenticeships and traineeships which had resulted in almost 40 per cent more students starting an apprenticeship or traineeship in 2021 than in 2019, before the pandemic started.

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Tuesday, 28 March 2022

VICTORIANS STARTING APPRENTICESHIPS IN RECORD NUMBERS

The Andrews Labor Government’s record investment in skills and training is continuing to support growing
numbers of Victorians into apprenticeships and meaningful career pathways, bolstering industries across the state.

The latest National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) report shows Victoria leading the nation with the highest increase in apprenticeship commencements, doubling to almost 50,000 Victorians in the 12 months to September 2021. More than 9,500 apprentices began in Victoria in the September quarter alone.

Some of the most popular apprenticeships were Automotive and Engineering, with a 141.7 per cent increase, and Electrotechnology and Telecommunications, with a 177.3 per cent increase.

The Labor Government is also giving more Victorians access to skills and training, with the NCVER report showing the number of female apprentices and trainees has increased by 71.7 per cent – a direct result of initiatives like the Government’s $5 million fund to remove barriers faced by women in traditionally male-dominated trades.

The Government is continuing to back great apprenticeship pathways for Victorian jobseekers, including by
establishing Apprenticeships Victoria, which is a point of contact for apprentices and connects the dots between trainers, employers and industry.

The $33 million Big Build Apprenticeships program is providing 1,500 opportunities to Victorian apprentices and trainees each year for four years to kickstart their careers on some of the state’s largest projects, including the new Footscray Hospital, North East Link and Warrnambool Learning and Library Hub.

The Government is also enhancing the quality of training and making it more industry-relevant by recruiting experts as TAFE teachers under the TAFE Teacher Training Scholarship, with study assistance worth $10,000.

Since 2014, the Government has made a record $3.2 billion investment to rebuild TAFE and support universities and higher education to ensure Victorians have access to high quality education and rewarding career pathways.

Quotes attributable to Minister for Training and Skills Gayle Tierney
“Our TAFE and training system is world-class and ensures Victorians are job-ready for meaningful careers – so it’s not surprising that more people are signing-up to apprenticeships and traineeships than anywhere in Australia.”

“Only a Labor Government will keep backing the skills and training system in Victoria – because we know that it provides great opportunities to jobseekers, building a pipeline of skilled workers for industries across the state.”

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Media Release: 28 February 2022

Australia’s official skills and training data institute the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) has today confirmed that despite COVID headwinds, Australian apprentice and trainee graduates are finding work at higher rates than pre-pandemic and remain satisfied with the training they are receiving.

The NCVER Apprentice and trainee outcomes 2021 report found:

• 94.0 per cent of trade apprentice graduates were employed after training, up 2.5 percentage points from 2019
• 88.4 per cent of traineeship graduates were employed after training, up 3.5 percentage points from 2019.

Encouragingly the overwhelming majority were happy with the skills learnt on the job, with 93 per cent of trade apprentices were satisfied with their on-the-job training.

The higher rates of trade apprentices and trainees gaining employment is further evidence of the ongoing strength of the Vocational Education and Training (VET) and TAFE system under the Morrison Government which has invested $13 billion in the skills system through the pandemic. This record investment, targeted at skilling Australians, has delivered the highest number of trade apprenticeships on record—220,000.

This latest report comes as NCVER recently found more than a quarter of Australian employers (27.4 per cent) currently have an apprentice or trainee, the highest rate since 2011.

Minister for Employment, Workforce, Skills, Small and Family Business, Stuart Robert, said the report was the latest demonstration that the Morrison Government’s targeted skills policies backed with record investment had secured a generation of Australian workers from COVID-19.

‘More Australians apprentices and trainees are getting into a job today than before the pandemic, while other countries shed their apprentice workforce we stepped in and put record funding in place, those apprentices are now graduating and getting onto worksites across the country,’ Minister Robert said.

‘JobKeeper, our apprentices wage supports, and JobTrainer have helped Australian businesses put on, and keep on, the next generation of Australian workers,’ he said.

‘When Labor was in government they presided over generational scarring of the workforce, the Morrison Government is delivering generational skilling.’

In January 2022 NCVER also found apprentice and trainee numbers were surging across Australia, up 27 per cent over the past year. NCVER also found annual apprentice and trainee commencements are at their highest level since 2014 with numbers increasing in all states and territories and across nearly all industry sectors.

NCVER attributed the surge in businesses taking up apprentices and trainees to the significant supports put in place by the Morrison Government noting JobKeeper, the Infection Control Training Fund, Supporting Apprentices and Trainees Wage support, the Boosting Apprenticeship Commencements wage support, and JobTrainer.

The current surge in apprenticeships contrasts with the experience of the final year of the former Labor Government, which according to official NCVER data saw the number of apprentices and trainees in-training collapse by 22 per cent, or 111,300 from June 2012 to June 2013. This was as a direct result of policy changes introduced by the Gillard Labor Government in 2012 aimed at addressing widespread rorting of incentive payments to employers, which led to the sharp decline in traineeships witnessed from 2013.

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24 February 2022

The Morrison Government has delivered record levels of trade apprenticeships across the Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury with trade apprentices continue to surge to record high levels across the country – reaching 220,000 in training in 2021.

New department program data demonstrates trade apprenticeships hit over 1425 in Macquarie in September 2021, the highest number on record and an increase of 21 per cent since Labor left office.

Minister for Employment, Workforce, Skills, Small and Family Business Stuart Robert said the milestone cemented the Morrison Government as the best friend tradies in the Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury have ever had.

‘Whether is up in Katoomba or down in Richmond—the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury are in the midst of an apprenticeships boom, there has never been as many Australians having a crack at a trade apprenticeship than today right here.

‘Our record funding of $13 billion in skills and training through the pandemic has secured a generation of local Australian apprentices through the greatest shock since the Great Depression.’

‘With the economy firing again, hundreds of thousands of jobs available and billions of dollars of skills funding on the table this is a once in a generation opportunity for Aussies to get into a career that will last a lifetime.’

Liberal Senator for New South Wales, Senator the Hon Marise Payne, said skilling up young people was creating local employment opportunities and boosting economic activity.

‘Despite the challenges of the pandemic, this new data demonstrates the strength and resilience of our western Sydney economy and confirms that new jobs are being created locally,’ Senator Payne said.

‘Our economic recovery plan has meant that there are 100,000 more women in apprenticeships and traineeships now than there were prior to the pandemic.

‘The facts speak for themselves.

‘Under Labor the youth unemployment rate was 12.7 per cent – its 9.0 per cent today. The unemployment rate has been coming down and jobs are being created.’

Evidencing the positive impacts of the Morrison Government’s record funding of skills and training, the number of Australians undertaking skills and training has surged with total in-training apprenticeships and traineeships for September 2021 at 355,488, up from 264,585 in September 2020.

Apprenticeship commencements have risen significantly across all states and territories since the Morrison Government’s $3.9 billion Boosting Apprenticeship Commencements wage support was introduced in October 2020.

Boosting Apprenticeship Commencements has recently been backed in by the $716 million Completing Apprenticeships Commencements wage support.

The current surge in apprenticeships contrasts with the experience of the final year of the former Labor Government, which according to official NCVER data saw the number of apprentices and trainees in-training collapse by 22 per cent, or 111,300 from June 2012 to June 2013.

This was as a direct result of policy changes introduced by the Gillard Labor Government in 2012 aimed at addressing widespread rorting of incentive payments to employers, which led to the sharp decline in traineeships witnessed from 2013.

Macquarie lost one in five apprentices and trainees in Labor’s final year in office when in-training figures fell by 19 per cent (Jun 12 – Jun 13).

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Governments are being urged to broaden their focus beyond trade apprenticeships to other occupations in business, hospitality, aged care and childcare to address labour shortages across Australia.

Higher education researcher Peter Hurley from the Mitchell Institute at Victoria University said while job vacancies in occupations relating to trade apprenticeships and traineeships had grown, they represented only about 10 to 17 per cent of total vacancies advertised on the internet. The federal government has reported the largest increases in job advertisements in December were for hospitality, carers and aides and food trades workers.

“Apprenticeships and traineeships are excellent examples of pathways into work that have proven to be effective. But they are specific to certain occupations,” Dr Hurley said.

Dr Hurley said apprentices and trainees made up about 10 per cent of the pathways people take into the workforce. He said policymakers needed to create better vocational education and training (VET) courses to give young people stronger options outside universities and apprenticeships.

“Young people are going to university and doing apprenticeships in record numbers but there is a need for other high quality options,” he said.

“One of the biggest issues with VET is ensuring government funds are going where students are receiving the best quality courses, as opposed to increasing quantity of provision.”
Mitchell Evans (left) and Jordan Stansfield are apprentices at Volvo Parramatta. There has been a growth in apprenticeships including for mechanics.

National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) data shows that 3.9 million people were enrolled in vocational education and training last year, but up to 2.4 million of those were in short courses such as first aid and construction safety.

New national figures have shown an increase in the take-up of apprenticeships and traineeships in trades. Completion rates picked up in the June quarter 2021, but not enough to make up for bigger falls over recent years.

A spokesman for Employment, Workforce and Skills Minister Stuart Robert said the government had provided more than $7 billion in funding to boost apprenticeships and traineeships.

“We start 2022 with almost half a million job-ready Australians skilling up or skilled up with well over 270,000 JobTrainer enrolments and the highest level of trade apprentices on record with 220,000 in training,” he said.

Dr Hurley said while the federal government had made a big investment in apprentices and trainees, they were “only a part of skills policy”.

“Investing in employer subsidies for apprentices/trainees, while absolutely welcome and important, does not really address the larger skills problem,” he said.

(NCVER) data shows that in 2020, compared with 2019, government-funded full-year training equivalents decreased by 10 per cent to 494,100 and domestic fee for service full-year training decreased by 2.7 per cent to 387,500.

NSW Labor leader Chris Minns said while there had been an increase in-training and completion numbers from the June 2020 quarter to June 2021, numbers for the whole year were down for completions.

“The decline has hit across all sectors in the past year with a 12 per cent decrease in construction trades workers, 18.9 per cent decrease in food trades workers and a 20.2 per cent decrease in skilled animal and horticultural workers,” he said.

NSW Minister for Skills and Training Alister Henskens said the state government had provided free apprenticeships and traineeships which had resulted in almost 40 per cent more students starting an apprenticeship or traineeship in 2021 than in 2019, before the pandemic started.

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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.”

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As election time draws closer, federal ministers are celebrating an uptick in apprenticeships and promising low unemployment rates. But their messaging feels somewhat disconnected from the growing tech talent gap, and the plight of small businesses and startups struggling to find staff.

The number of Aussies in in-training apprenticeships and traineeships hit 347,266 in June 2021, that’s up from 268,215 from June 2020.

In-training trade apprenticeships reached a record high of 217,400 in July 2021.

Minister for employment, workforce and skills Stuart Robert puts this squarely down to the government’s apprenticeship wage support program, first introduced in October 2020 and expanded earlier this year.

As the economy starts to recover post-pandemic, “this is a once in a generation opportunity for Aussies to get into a career that will last a lifetime”, Robert said in a statement.

“We will look back at this period as critical in securing Australia’s workforce.”

Elsewhere, Josh Frydenberg has suggested the government is striving for a Menzies-style model of ‘full employment’, that is, keeping the unemployment rate sustained at below 5%.

While opening The Robert Menzies Institute at Melbourne University on Thursday, Frydenberg reportedly extolled the virtues of “individual aspiration, reward for effort and free enterprise”.

“As we emerge from this crisis, we embrace these principles and now have an opportunity not seen for decades to drive down unemployment even further.”

Sitting at 5.2% for October 2021 — up from 4.6% in September — the unemployment rate is forecast to drop to 4.25% by the end of 2022, and to reach a sustained level of 4% in 2023.
Tech skills gaps are widening

Frydenberg’s speech follows Morrison’s promise of the creation of 280,000 jobs ahead of the Christmas period. But while the jobs may be there, we don’t necessarily have the skilled workers to fill them.

A report from Amazon Web Services and Alphabeta found Australia will require some 6.5 million digital workers by 2025 to meet the demand for tech skills — that’s 79% more than we have today.

Amazon’s AWS Skill Builder program, which allows anyone to access digital skills courses, has already supported some 200,000 Australians since 2017, including people who have been previously disenfranchised or excluded from the workforce.

The skills gap is especially acute in the cybersecurity sector, even as the risk of cyber attacks becomes all the more pertinent.

Data from AustCyber reportedly suggests Australia will need about 7000 additional skilled cybersecurity specialists over the next two years.

According to AustCyber chief executive Michelle Price, there may be between 100,000 and 150,000 vacancies for indirect cyber security workers who need some level of knowledge in order to do their jobs safely.

That’s a shortage that could hit small businesses hard.

Susie Jones, co-founder and chief executive of cyber security startup Cynch Security, tells SmartCompany there are already “so few” cyber security specialists catering to small businesses in the market — far fewer than are needed — and that gap is only getting wider.

“Business owners need to take control of their cyber risks themselves and educate themselves on better tech behaviours and solutions,” she advises.

At the same time, she would like to see both state and federal governments incentivising workers from other industries that are not facing the same challenges to transition into the industry, learning new skills and bringing their existing ones with them.

“Opening up immigration again will also go a long way to helping reduce the impact of the problem,” she adds.

All of this comes as Australian businesses grapple with the threat of The Great Resignation, which is seeing more workers considering a change in career.