Population: Addressing the Australian skills shortage
Where is your next worker?
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As our population ages, and the number of Australians available to work falls, the next worker for many businesses may still be at university, offshore, or even outside the traditional workplace, and ‘in the crowd’. The 168,000 skilled immigrants that arrived in Australia in 2009-10 boosted the Federal Budget bottom line by around $800 million in the first year after arrival.1 |
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Population levers
To solve the looming skills shortage businesses can look closely at the number of people of working age or about to enter the workforce to enhance growth prospects as outlined below:
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Recruiting talent early to overcome the skills gap Recruiting graduates early in their education will help combat the looming demographic gap as the workforce ages and retires and the number of graduates in Australia decreases. |
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Crowdsourcing workforce talent and skills Mass collaboration in our increasingly connected world creates opportunities for businesses to work outside traditional corporate and geographic boundaries and radically rethink how they access skills, including from ‘the crowd’. |
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Offshoring to support business growth and competitiveness Offshoring is an option for businesses to overcome the looming skills gap as Australia as a high wage, high productivity nation cannot compete with wage costs in developing countries. |
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Skilled migrants can support business growth Australia won’t be able to produce anywhere near the number of skilled workers needed in the future, and there is now a widening gap between global demand for our exports and immigrants to help meet that demand. |
1. Australian Government, Department of immigration and Citizenship (April 2011), "Migrant Economic Outcomes and Contributions" p.11
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Where is your next worker?
Video [03:35]
Where is your next worker? addresses the positive actions business and government can take to maintain momentum in the face of a looming national skills shortage