A report released by the Victorian Skills Authority this week laid bare the chronic worker shortage facing Victoria. According to the report, Victoria is facing a shortage of approximately 373,000 workers by 2025, with the health, services, IT, education and construction sectors among those most affected.

It reinforced the clear message I’ve received as I’ve moved around Victoria in recent months that this is now the biggest challenge facing business. As I explained in my column in the Herald Sun on Monday, next week’s Jobs and Skills Summit in Canberra is a generational opportunity to address the most pressing issue facing Australia’s economy.

Pleasingly, the Victoria Skills Plan 2022 adopts many of the points raised in the Victoria Summit Playbook, such as encouraging stronger partnerships between industry and education, speeding up the ability of the sector to react to the changing needs of industry in order to remain relevant, and reducing the time for qualifications to be scoped and certified.

The Victorian Chamber has been working closely with business, unions and our members in a range of key sectors including in the education and training space to take a joint position to Canberra to ensure Victoria’s needs are communicated. We will have more to say about this early next week.

Yesterday Melbourne Chamber of Commerce CEO Scott Veenker hosted Ukraine Ambassador Vasyl Myroshnychenko for a special event to mark Ukraine’s Independence Day. While celebrations this year will be sombre, it was a wonderful opportunity to connect and show our support for our good friends from the Ukraine and learn more about how our members can help.

Congratulations to the Salvation Army, Collingwood Football Club and the City of Melbourne for launching the Pink Car initiative yesterday. Promoting women’s safety, the Pink Car is an extension of the successful Youth Street Teams programs and the Salvations Army’s Major Brendan Nottle deserves special credit for this important initiative for the city. He really is the urban saint of Melbourne!

I look forward to hopefully seeing many of you at tomorrow’s Business Breakfast at ZINC at Federation Square and hearing from Victorian Opposition Leader Matthew Guy and his Senior Leadership Team. The Victorian Election is just three months away and we look forward to hearing more from our leaders about their plans to advance Victorian business.

Good luck to all the AFLW players as the season kicks off this weekend. We’ll have to wait another week for the AFL men’s finals to start but it’s a great time of year as we head into the start of spring and look forward to so many fantastic events across the state.

Have a great week ahead