Last week’s budget put the skills focus squarely on apprenticeships. But according to its own National Workforce Strategy, that’s not where the demand is.
The billions of dollars the Coalition will pour into training for construction-related jobs is in sharp contrast to projections of huge growth in healthcare and social assistance roles over the next four years.
The renamed Australian Apprenticeships Incentives Scheme has been retargeted so that apprentices, as well as employers, receive financial incentives.“It does risk being a mismatch,” said Brendan Coates, economic policy program director at the Grattan Institute. John Buchanan, head of the University of Sydney’s Health and Work Research Network, said there was no question the decade-long decline in apprentice numbers needed to be arrested, but that there appeared to be no coherent strategy behind last week’s announcements.
“You should be careful not to direct too much to the funding of male-dominated occupations such as construction with lower demand,” Mr Coates said.However, Andrew Norton, a higher education policy expert from Australian National University, said he was not too troubled by any inherent gender bias in the apprenticeship schemes since women were preferably treated in universities where they make up nearly 60 per cent of students.
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