Australia could face a shortfall of 1.4 million workers by 2025, according to a new report.

The Victorian Employers Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VECCI) is presenting its "Workplace Futures Report" to a summit in Melbourne today.

VECCI says the nation's ageing population will impact on skills and older Australians need to be encouraged into the work force.

Spokesman Andrew Rimington says older workers need more flexible options.

"We have seen, for instance, the level of work force participation rate of the aged 55 to 59 age group over the last year increase to a record level during a time of economic downturn," he said.

"The increase of older workers in the work force does create consideration of issues around job re-design and flexible practice, shorter working hours perhaps, part time arrangements."

The VECCI report says Victorian employers could face a shortfall of about 440,000.

The report says Victoria's population will reach to 6.7 million in 15 years, but work force growth will decline, because of the ageing population.

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Tags: australia, generations, older workers, retirement, retention

Categories: International | News | Research

(From thegovmonitor.com) The Minister for Education, Julia Gillard, today announced that all apprenticeships and vocational education training packages will be reviewed to ensure that they include relevant green skills by March next year, and that all courses will be revised to include the new green skills by the end of 2010.

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Tags: training, business news, australia, green, green training

Categories: International | News

PETALING JAYA, Oct 7 (Bernama) -- Australia's Victoria state government is willing to assist and exchange experiences with Malaysia in the area of skills and vocational training.

State minister for regional and rural development, skills and workforce participation Jacinta Allan said, among the areas could be in teacher training, co-curiculum development and quality and regulations.

"There is the opportunity to share ideas, materials and learning," she told Bernama after delivering a lecture, 'Woman in High Office', at the Monash University, Sunway Campus here on Wednesday.

She arrived in Malaysia yesterday for a two-day working visit where she held discussions with officials of the higher education ministry and ministry of rural and regional development.

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Tags: training, business news, australia, malaysia

Categories: International | News

(ABC News) -- The Federal Government's bid to set up national laws for workplace safety is in doubt, with Western Australia saying it is unlikely to agree.

A draft version of the new national occupational health and safety laws is expected to be released today.

Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard is meeting state and territory ministers, including a concerned Troy Buswell from Western Australia.

He is refusing to sign up to the laws because he thinks they give unions too much power.

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Tags: australia, workplace, public sector, safety

Categories: International | News

It aimed to provide training places for more than 700,000 people over five years to address Australia's skills shortage.

Martin Riordan, the chief executive of TAFE Directors Australia, says the program has been in strife from day one.

He says it has failed to look at longer-term skills needs.

"The problem has been that the program was rushed and was underfunded in many cases by more than 50 per cent," he said.

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Tags: australia, skills shortage

Categories: International | News

(From The Australian) JULIA Gillard today will concede that Australia's industrial relations culture is holding back the productivity boost promised by her new workplace system.

The Deputy Prime Minister's push follows business complaints that the new Fair Work Australia system is entrenching an outmoded adversarial workplace culture based on the industrial tribunal, the unions and awards.

Ms Gillard will use her address to the World Congress of the International Industrial Relations Association in Sydney to announce "a new focus on cultural change in the workplace".

This has been given impetus by an unpublicised Melbourne forum of business leaders, union officials, bureaucrats and academics convened by Ms Gillard late last month to promote the "workplace of the future".

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Tags: workplace, behavior, government, australia, culture, business news

Categories: International | News

(From Australian IT) Skilled workers will soon be in short supply even if overall unemployment continues to rise, a report says.
The Clarius skills index report for the June quarter shows that while skilled job seekers are still struggling to find work, unemployment among the qualified is falling.

Information technology, engineering and accounting professionals are expected to be in short supply within the coming year as firms struggle to find suitably qualified candidates.

About 37,000 qualified candidates were unsuccessful at getting a job in the June quarter, compared with 14,000 previously.

But a closer look at the figures, based on official employment data, showed 124,800 professionals were unemployed in the three months to June 30, compared with 133,700 in the first three months of 2009.

The March quarter's skilled unemployment tally was the worst since 2001.

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Tags: skills, skills shortage, australia

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Lately, everyone is talkin’ ‘bout your generation. With an age gap of nearly 50 years between the oldest and youngest employees in some organisations, there is a broad range of perspectives, needs and attitudes floating around the office. Today’s workplace is most definitely a multi-generational one – and each generation has its own set of expectations, needs, values and working styles.

While generational diversity in the workforce promotes a broader range of talent, it can often mean conflicting ideas and stereotyping – the Baby Boomers think Generation X needs a stronger work ethic, Gen X sees the Boomers as self-absorbed workaholics – and everyone thinks Generation Y is selfish and self-entitled.

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Tags: generations in the workplace, australia, baby boomer, gen x, gen y

Categories: News

(AAP, May 18, 2009 07:54am) THERE will be a severe skills shortage in Australia when the economic downturn subsides, an employment services group says.

More than 43,000 skilled workers joined the ranks of the unemployed in the opening months of 2009, new research shows.

There are now 133,700 unemployed skilled workers, according to the data by specialist employment services group Clarius.

Clarius executive manager Kym Quick said it was a temporary situation.

"At some point down the track we will be back in the same scenario that we were several years ago where we will have severe skills shortages,'' Ms Quick told ABC Television.

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Tags: australia, economy, skills

Categories: The Economy