The Victorian Chamber was pleased to host nearly 200 guests at Crown Melbourne as Mr O’Connor addressed how Australia can rebuild its skilled workforce and lift productivity to benefit Australia’s economy.

Mr O’Connor expanded on “consensus around a number of key areas” from the Federal Government’s recent Jobs and Skills Summit.

A priority was to increase inclusive workforce participation by removing womens’ barriers to work, including lack of affordable childcare, provision of inclusive workplaces and flexible work.

“Increasing women’s participation in the workforce is a critical economic issue and is a national priority,” Mr O’Connor said.

He added there are also “untapped resources in other groups locked out of the labour markets”, such as people with disabilities and other cohorts.

“It’s high time for them to be given a better go as well.”

Skills and training has been an ongoing area of post-pandemic urgency, and Mr O’Connor said his government was committed to addressing the systemic issue of rebuilding TAFE and the vocational educational sector.

He pointed to poor completion rates of traineeships and apprenticeships, the latter of which has fallen to 55 per cent. More support is needed for training providers and employers to ensure the settings are right for workers and business to thrive, Mr O’Connor said.

“We need the sector to work closely with industry to deliver high-quality and relevant skills businesses need to equip student, apprentices, trainees and existing workers for work now and into the future,” Mr O’Connor said.

Foundational skills such as basic literacy, numeracy and digital are also a priority. Mr O’Connor quoted statistics that 3 million adults lack these fundamental skills.

“Core learning skills necessary to provide access to education and career opportunities.”

With a changing economy, “people have to continue to learn throughout their working life. There is no set and forget anymore.”

It’s why Jobs and Skills Australia (JSA) is a critical agency to identify and tackle challenges, Mr O’Connor said.

JSA was born from the first piece of legislation introduced in the most recent parliamentary term to establish a statutory body to independently identify and anticipate labour market demands.

It will help the government “understanding what the market needs” and invest in it, such as transitioning jobs in the energy sector.

On longer-term plans, Mr O’Connor also spoke of the government’s commitment to restart discussions with states and territories on a five-year national skills agreement to start in 2024.

This seeks reforms to the VET sector to “ensure we have a sector that is capable of delivering the skills that the economy needs.”

A recent national cabinet meeting also agreed on an in-principle position to deliver 180,000 VET places in 2023.

Finally, though not in his portfolio, Mr O’Connor mentioned his government understands the immediacy on clearing the skilled migration backlog and was working on a “combination of… investing in our own people and having skilled migration pathways that fill the needs of the market.”