Observers of minister-speak suggest there is now less talk of the proportion of future jobs that will require university degrees and more about the percentage that will require tertiary qualifications, which includes VET.
A new report from Jobs and Skills Australia indicates there is evidence for talking up training. Problem is the – there are not enough starters to meet present, let alone future, demand.
JSA states that two-thirds of job created in 2024 were in VET based occupations, requiring Skill Levels Two to Four. Skill Level One (graduate jobs) increased, while the lowest skill level Five, declined.
However employment growth in VET is focused on the expanding care economy. Employment growth was strongest for community and personal service workers (3.7 per cent) while and technician and trades sectors (2.3%) is not expanding fast. Over five years professions and manager had the strongest jobs growth around 20%, matched by the community category while tech/trade employment was up less than half that in the five years to November ’24.
That is a problem, given JSA separately reports unmet demand for technicians and trade workers. The vacancy fill rate in the 2024 December quarter was 56 %, compared to 73 % for the community and personal services category and 70% for top skilled managers.
This might explain why the skilled trades workforce is not growing despite endlessly announced shortages – there are not enough workers. As Iain Riss and Lisa Paul warned in their January report to the Commonwealth Government, apprentice starts and completions have continued to fall since 2012 and “without the necessary skilled workers, Australia will not be able to meet its economic priorities.”
One expensive way to address this is more and better employer and apprentices but there does not appear to be lower-cost alternative. Education Minister Jason Clare is funding more commencing university places for low SES students to meet demand for graduates. This might be as much as universities get if the next government switches to expanding the skills base.
