Western Australia’s skills shortage has prompted a flurry of activity by government and industry, although the state is struggling to find traction on the issue.
The resource sector’s voracious demand for skilled workers is continuing to test industry and governments’ capacity to provide training solutions for the long term.
Over the past five years, the number of apprentices in training in Western Australia has nearly doubled, from about 12,000 to almost 22,000, according to the Department of Education and Training.
Yet according to the government’s skills formation taskforce, the state is facing a shortfall of 4,780 apprenticeship commencements over the next two years.
Despite this, industry groups believe major inroads have been made in recent years to address the skills shortage issue.
Chamber of Minerals and Energy (WA) chief executive Tim Shanahan said key changes to the state’s training system were encouraging, such as the move to assess apprenticeships based on competency level rather than time served.
However, he acknowledged that demand for skills remained high.
“There’s a very high level of pressure on industry to secure a skilled workforce. It’s still regarded by the chamber as a top three issue that might become a barrier to certain projects going ahead,” Mr Shanahan said.
Last month, the State Training Board released a report titled Beyond the Resources Boom, which recommended a white paper be developed to respond to WA’s skills shortage.
It also said non-traditional groups, including females and indigenous communities, should be encouraged to take up vocational training.
To this end, the state government last week announced a major forum to tackle indigenous unemployment in WA, to be held in November, and $4 million towards training and community programs.
The report also confirmed that trade training should remain a priority, based on projected growth to 2016.
Woodside Energy director of enterprise capability, Keith Spence, who chairs the State Training Board, said increased workforce participation was a key element in addressing skills shortages.
However, raising the profile of the trade professions is a major hurdle in boosting growth, according to the automotive industry.
Eurogroup managing director Rod Slater, who is chair of Maddington-based ATC Perth South, a new Australian technical college, said more investment was required in trade skills promotion.
“We need to encourage more young people to take up trade careers, not academic careers. That’s what has been lacking for the last 30 years,” he said.
“This academic idealism pathway, that you have to aspire to university as a first priority in life – we need to change that.”
Motor Trade Association of WA chief executive officer Peter Fitzpatrick agreed, saying a three-way approach between students, teachers and parents was needed, as well as promotional literature in high schools.
“I’m not denigrating university degrees at all. But there is a status issue with trades in Australia that we’ve got to address,” he said.
“There is a real need for an attitudinal shift.”
The federal government’s Australian Technical Colleges program, which provides school-based apprenticeship training to year 11 and 12 students, has been promoted as one solution to this issue.
Of further concern is the lag between apprentices in training and the intake of skilled workers.
The government’s skills formation taskforce has highlighted this problem, with WA identified as having a shortfall of 2,100 trade positions this year.
Association of Consulting Engineers Australia chief executive officer, Megan Motto, said many companies were demanding more flexible training delivery as a way to combat the lag time on training.
These options included allowing apprentices to learn one component of a trade and deferring other training in order to join the workforce earlier.
The building industry has adopted this approach, with apprentice training now undertaken in modules.
However, the MTA’s Peter Fitzpatrick said there was a risk that apprentices would end up with a narrow skill base if they were trained in one specific area.
“I think that’s short-term thinking. It might get you out of a hole now, but if you have a lot of semi-skilled workers emerging, then down the track you’d be in a constant state of upskilling,” he said.
Industry is also becoming increasingly involved in training delivery, having a governance role in technical colleges and, in some cases, closer involvement in course content through Tafe.
Joint collaborations between industry and the government training sector are also becoming more common.
The $21 million Australian Centre for Energy and Process Training (ACEPT), run by Challenger Tafe and located near Henderson, is one example.
The centre, due to open next year, will train about 350 students each year.
According to a training industry representative, the centre’s industry partners – which include Chevron Australia Pty Ltd and Woodside Energy Ltd – will have considerable control over both investment and training delivery at the facility.
“More than any other centre, the line is going to have to be blurred over how this is run,” the training industry representative, who didn’t want to be identified, said.
“Government is going to have to cede control and industry is going to have to come to the party, because this is small numbers, high cost training.”
Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association director, Don Sanders, said it was important that industry had flexibility around training provision.
“Industry should have the freedom to choose the best provider, and not have to use the Tafe system,” he said.
“If Tafe is the best provider, we will use it, like with ACEPT.”
The Tafe sector is by far the largest apprentice training provider in WA.
In 2006, WA’s four major metropolitan Tafes – West Coast, Swan, Challenger and Central – trained 10,565 of the state’s 19,076 apprentices.
Automotive Holdings Group Ltd is one of the state’s biggest apprentice employers, with 600 apprentices currently undertaking training at its WA dealerships.
Philip McLardy, service manager of AHG’s City Motors dealership, said the company had a good relationship with its registered training providers Swan Tafe and the Motor Industry Training Association of WA.
“My understanding is Tafe is extremely conscientious about its strengths and weaknesses. They are looking for options when it comes to automotive training, because they’re aware of their limitations,” Mr McLardy told WA Business News.
“They acknowledge that most of the training takes place in the workplace and are making it easier to measure the day to day work as part of the apprenticeship.”
Henderson-based ship builder Austal Ltd is also closely involved with training delivery for its 270 apprentices, most of whom are based in WA.
Austal chief operating officer Stephen Murdoch said the company had worked collaboratively with Challenger Tafe, which performs the offsite training for Austal’s apprentices, to improve training delivery.
Mr Murdoch said the company had sought to make course content more relevant.
“We need to continue to be aggressive; we’ve made moderate and steady progress so far,” he said.
“We’ve also been ruthlessly pursuing how to increase our efficiency and utilise our workforce more productively.”
Mr Murdoch said the company had an integrated approach to dealing with its skills vacancies, including bringing in migrant workers.
He said other avenues, such as encouraging non-traditional groups to join the workforce, should be explored.
“A lot of the problems we’re experiencing now are because the oil and gas and mining industries have not taken up the load over the last 10 to 15 years. They’ve stopped investing in training and they’re playing catch up,” he said.
While the mining industry’s demand for labour has been blamed for current skills pressures, the industry denies it has failed to invest in training.
APPEA’s Don Sanders said training investment in the mining industry was higher than in other sectors.
“Our industry has expended an enormous amount on training. We’re spending up to $10,000 per person on training, but it’s internal,” he said.
“Because it’s not done through a separate training body, like Tafe, it doesn’t show up.”
In 2005, the state government proposed a levy be introduced on mining projects to create an investment fund for training.
The mining industry continues to oppose this strategy, believing it would impose an unfair burden.
“We object to the fact that it’s just another tax, basically. Certain groups do need to be forced to spend more money on training, but we spend an enormous amount,” Mr Sanders said.
“This is not the way to bully our people into spending more money on training.”
The CME’s Tim Shanahan said a training levy would be a further impost on the mining industry, which was already facing rising project costs.
“The mining sector has always spent the most per capita on education and training,” he said.
WA’s building and construction industry has had a training levy on projects since 1991.
The levy is 0.2 per cent of total project value and applies to jobs worth more than $20,000, with some exceptions.
The state’s construction boom helped to boost the fund’s revenue to $23 million last financial year, up from about $10 million three years ago.
Building and Construction Industry Training Fund (BCITF) executive director Ralph Dawson said the fund had enabled the industry to be better placed to address the skills issue.
“Since the fund was established, we’ve had a 255 per cent increase in the number of apprentices in training. During that time, the number of tradespersons [in WA] has increased by 133 per cent,” he said.
The automotive industry has declared it would like a similar arrangement to the building and construction industry.
The MTA’s Peter Fitzpatrick said the organisation had petitioned the government to build a similar fund to the BCITF, of about $15 million, to be sourced from a $5 levy on vehicle registrations, but the proposal had been rejected.
“We’re at a comparative disadvantage to the building industry, without a doubt,” he said.
