The new Jobs and Skills Council will focus on responding to the current and emerging skills needs and workforce challenges of related industries – retail and wholesale, online sales and fulfilment, personal services, arts, tourism, travel and hospitality.
The program is being administered by the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations with the funding intended to provide the new Jobs and Skills Council with a stronger, more strategic voice, and broader role in ensuring Australia’s VET system continues to deliver on employer and learner needs.
ARA chief executive officer, Paul Zahra, said collaborative work across industry, unions, and government is critical to the success of any skills and training programs.
“With acute labour and skills shortages across the arts, personal services, retail, tourism and hospitality sectors, there’s never been a more critical time to enhance our current approach to vocational training,” he said. “We know from past experience that this work will only be successful when industry, governments and unions work together and are aligned on outcomes. We are very encouraged by the awarding of this grant, which will be used for establishment activities for our Jobs and Skills Council.”
Mr Zahra said the ARA will be involved in overseeing the set-up of a separate entity known as ‘Workforce Equipped’ and establishing the board, management and supporting organisational structure to operate the entity ongoing.
The new entity will be tripartite, not-for-profit, with a number of employee and employer organisations and ARA members as foundation voting members.
“We have already been able to demonstrate a high level of cooperation and alignment across the key sectors in getting to this stage of this new organisation. The grant process was a significant and lengthy piece of work with many cross functional external stakeholders and was underpinned by the commitment received from our ARA members and key employee and industry stakeholders demonstrating their support of the submission,” he said.
