Check out the link below. The National Skills Commission says the nation is facing a “staggering” skills shortage and reckons occupation shortages doubled in 2022 as the labour market tightened.
Let me pop this bubble right now. Yep, we need more nurses and care workers but much of this palaver is PR spin put out by TAFE’s, private training providers and big business who want more cheap immigrants.
One of the reason employers complain about a ‘skills shortage’ is that until recently, when they advertised a job – especially manufacturing, labouring or entry level IT – they were getting inundated with applications from people on the dole who had to apply for 20 jobs a month. Many of the applicants had no qualifications or experience in the job.
The employer rightly thought, ‘Gee, there must be a skill shortage’.
We could do with many more enrolled and registered nurses. If so, why not pay them what they’re worth?
But to claim we’re in a skills desert is a beat up. People are still graduating from TAFEs and private providers.
People are still upgrading their skills face-to-face or online or a combination of both.
Enrolments in AQF III and AQF IV (trade level certificates) are booming.
Job vacancies have grown more than 40 per cent in the year to August 2022 because the hospitality industry wants casual baristas and waiters to do low level and insecure work. Young people have wised up.
The National Skills Commission says technicians, trade workers and professionals have the most shortages as a proportion of the workforce.
But many of these were in construction and this sector is a basket case.
Much of the PR stuff you read about job shortages is born from private and public sector spin.
I advise clients to do considerable research in SA before undertaking a trade or profession on the promise they’ll get a job because there’s a ‘skills shortage’.