We keep getting confirmation there is indeed a skills shortage and that the biggest opportunities are in the clean energy mega trend area. But other shortages include in planning, ESG (of course) and even in homelessness services.
Among the bevy of reports hitting the headline recently has been the Job and Skills Australia’s inaugural report, Towards a National Jobs and Skills Roadmap.
The document acknowledges that the country is experiencing a tight labour market and extensive skill shortages. And that despite price inflation and continuing low productivity growth, the labour market has been slow to lift wage growth, “which has been stagnant for a decade”.
In fact, a survey of employers found that few employers had changed remuneration over the past three years in response to skill shortages.
The three key pillars of the national skills system, vocational education and training (VET), higher education, and migration, a finding in line with the recently released white paper Working Futures, the report notes.
It highlights that a student-centred reform of the nation’s skills training and higher education sectors is needed, was along with clean energy and net zero transformation, a “megatrend” that has been a major focus of its work.
This is a transition that has opened up “significant opportunities for Australia with its abundant renewable energy resources and a significant construction effort required in the near term.”
“Stakeholders have consistently emphasised Australia will need to lift the pipeline of VET (vocational educational trained) workers, including in regional areas, to meet the needs of the clean energy transition.” the report says. In no surprise to anyone.
Tertiary education response
Agreeing with the sentiments from the JSA is the Independent Tertiary Education Council Australia (ITECA) which backed calls for more reforms, saying more action is needed by way of government policy to help students to study with the provider of their choice to help them achieve their life and career goals.
Troy Williams, ITECA chief executive, said, “JSA’s report shows that to meet the current skills challenges and the skills needs of the future, we need to improve access to both skills training and higher education for those entering the workforce and those looking to upskill.
“We need Australia’s workforce to be supported by a lifelong learning system that enables them to continually develop their skills to meet the needs of a dynamic economy and changing labour market.”
The builders
Master Builders Australia is also joining the call for action, with chief executive Denita Wawn saying that the roadmap.
“Analysis of current skills shortages shows that 36 per cent of occupations assessed were in national shortage in 2023,” said Wawn.
“VET is central to skills and knowledge development in the building and construction industry, more so than any other sector in Australia.
“A VET qualification is the highest level of education attained for over 600,000 building and construction workers. This is 54 per cent of the total workforce, 80 per cent of workers with a post-school qualification, and 50 per cent of the occupations assessed as being in national shortage are technicians and trade workers.
Wawn added that governments now need to ensure policy levers were being pulled in the same direction.
“The proposed industrial relations legislation currently before parliament will counter efforts made in the skills space and make it harder for employers to create new jobs. It will sap productivity,” said Wawn.
“If Australia is to meet Housing Accord and net zero targets, we need better incentivise people to join and stay in these occupations now and in future.”
The planners
According to the Planning Institute of Australia (PIA), the worsening shortage of urban and regional planners could impact housing, regional communities, and the transition to net zero.
Despite the occupation not being assessed as “short” in 2022, “urban and regional planner” has become one of the occupations considered short in every state and territory except the ACT.
PIA chief executive Matt Collins said, “Urban and regional planners are critical to addressing long-term challenges like housing affordability, population growth and the transition to net zero, and this worsening shortage is bad news for Australia’s future.”
The institute reports that demand for planners was expected to increase, and the profession’s growth was hampered by declining university enrolments and the closure of several university planning degrees in recent years.
“PIA has recently written to the Australian Government expressing our concern about the pipeline of future planners, with recent course closures announced at James Cook University and Bond University, and states such as Tasmania and South Australia now lack an undergraduate planning degree altogether,” Collins said.
He urges governments and universities to invest in growing the planning profession and promoting planning as a career choice to ensure the profession can continue to address critical challenges such as housing and climate change.
“The shortage is having very clear impacts in regional communities already, and we know that there are 232 local government areas in Australia (43 per cent) where there are no planners working within them,” he said.
The homelessness sector is struggling too
Another report by the investigative panel into building and retaining an effective homelessness sector workforce also suggests that low remuneration, short-term contracts, and competitive funding models are causing a workforce shortage in its patch.
The panel describes the work needed to be done by the specialist homelessness services sector, which has become “increasingly complex” and places “high physical and psychological demands on staff”.
Sector staff is faced with heavy administrative tasks, emotional demands, unrealistic expectations and significant problem-solving demands to navigate the welfare system – pressures that contribute to staffing shortage and these issues are expected to increase in the future.
The research identifies key government policies that must be prioritised to improve the situation for workers, including reforming how related funds are delivered by states and territories. A range of organisation and sector-level policies are also recommended to help prepare, attract, recruit and retain employees in the sector, which includes better training and development and hiring administration positions.
The panel involved eight industry researchers and members from the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) based in Melbourne.
What will it take to pop the ESG job bubble?
According to Grant Harrison, the director of sustainable finance and ESG at the US based GreenBiz Group, there is no golden ticket.
For example, finance-sector ESG employees enjoyed a base salary growth of roughly 38 per cent more than their non-ESG counterparts.
However, “an ESG job might not be the right role to seek if you’re looking for an ESG job,” writes Harrison.
He wrote that companies looking to fill ESG roles often describe someone who left the role as “a unicorn”.
“Unfortunately, no ESG credential, coursework or certification can infuse a job seeker with institutional knowledge or metamorphose them into a unicorn.”
The most sought-after skills for ESG roles, according to Daniel Hill, founder of #OpenDoorClimate was a firm knowledge of ESG reporting and disclosure frameworks and the ability to interpret and use the data the frameworks garner.
The other thing was, “A quick conversation over coffee — even a virtual one— can go a longer way than you might think.”
– with Tina Perinotto