Deloitte calls for skills shortage action

Enviromine

Publishing Date: 02 Nov 2011 5:16pm GMT
Author: Mining, People and the Environment

Sustainability

Professional services firm Deloitte has added its weight to concerns over Australia’s looming skills shortage.

In a newly released discussion paper, ‘Where Is Your Next Worker?’ the firm urges Australian businesses and government to “act now”.

“The world is begging Australia to grow faster, offering us prices for our resources we have never seen before,” said Chris Richardson of Deloitte Access Economics. “Yet at the same time Australia has adopted policies that have seen migration fall, doing so just ahead of the biggest surge in retiree numbers this nation has ever seen. That means the next few years will see skill shortages proliferate.”

The report offers 12 responses to what have been labelled the ‘three Ps’ (population, participation and productivity).Some are obvious steps, the report says, such as simplifying the visa system for migrants. Yet individual businesses that get ahead of the coming skills crunch will also gain a key competitive advantage.

The 12 ‘levers’ offered by Deloitte aim to cover a broad range of options for business and government, the group said.

These include working with the education system to access future skills, fully utilising the female workforce, encouraging retirees back to work and using innovative solutions and technology to address business need.