Immigration reform: It’s a matter of skill

On Wednesday 11 Mar, Heather Ridout, board member of Skills Australia and Chief Executive of the Australian Industry Group[3], argued convincingly on ABC's Lateline that while Australia currently has 1.7 million people in vocational training of one sort or another, the nation will need another 2.4 million skilled workers by 2015 and many of those will need to be conversant with skills of the future[4].

What's worse, she lamented, is that while at any one time up to 450,000 apprentices and trainees are being taught, in come cases up to 70% quit their courses before completing them. Also we have a workforce where nearly half cannot read the operating manual necessary for the job they're doing in a factory.

In short we have a lack of foundation skills in our existing workforce and an emerging skills gap in areas where the skill content of jobs is rising.

To help address the skills shortages, the Commonwealth has introduced a new category: a resource industry targeted Enterprise Migration Agreement[5], which will allow resource giants to identify much needed workers from overseas and invite them to Australia. Interestingly, there is no limit to the numbers than can be brought here under this scheme.

Over the years, most budgets, from both sides of politics, have revealed what we already all knew. That we simply do not have the right amount of Australians, with the right skill sets, at the right time, in the right places of employment.