Regional Rethink Critical to Overcome Skills Shortage

Increasing skilled migration and the reclassification of regional areas are fundamental to solving the long-running skills crisis in the Northern Territory’s automotive industry.

“The skill shortage is a major issue for members and the MTA continues to advocate for change at both the State and Federal level to address the problem,” said Kaes Cillessen, the MTA’s Policy and Communications Manager.

While disappointed that there was no representative from automotive at the recent Jobs and Skills Summit, the MTAA offered a frank submission, warning:

“… there have been many false starts. Many wellintentioned attempts at fixing, modernising, and adapting engagement of future workers providing the training and skills development to keep pace with rapidly changing sectors and industries in a world of rising tension, supply chain interruptions and uncertainty and increasing scrutiny on our capacity and capability.

“A capacity and capability now crippled by broken training and assessment regime, the good and the bad of almost full employment, skilled worker migration complexity and uncertainty, diminishing labour pools and an aging population. These must be key focus areas of Jobs and Skills Australia.”

PROGRESS ON MIGRATION

Kaes said the MTA was encouraged with some of the Summit’s outcomes including several migration initiatives.

“The MTA continues to invest in local employment by training apprentices but skilled migrants, especially for regional areas, must be considered,” said Kaes.

The Association noted the government’s commitment to:

1. An increase in the permanent Migration Program ceiling to 195,000 in 2022-23 to help ease widespread, critical workforce shortages

2. Extending visas and relaxing work restrictions on international students to strengthen the pipeline of skilled labour, and providing additional funding to resolve the visa backlog

3. Funding of $36.1 million to clear a major backlog of visa applications

4. A one-off income credit so that Age Pensioners who want to work can earn an additional $4,000 over this financial year without losing any of their pension.

REGIONAL DEFINITION NEEDS FIXING

While the Albanese Government has committed to increasing regional visas by 9,000 to 34,000, the ongoing problem of classifying regions remains.

“The designated regional areas needs to be reviewed,” said Kaes.

“For example, the Category Two regional areas includes east coast locations such as the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast.

“We know it is challenging to get skilled migrants to choose the Northern Territory over east coast locations.

“The idea of the scheme is to assist regional areas that are both isolated and less popular with migrants.

“For the NT that is geographically isolated, it is very difficult to compete against those east coast locations.

“We need more consideration to a location’s relative geographical isolation as well as their overall population density.”

CRITICAL ISSUES

The MTAA submission to the Summit stated that “in 2022, we are also experiencing the highest ever recorded shortages of skilled automotive professionals.

“A training, skills development and assessment regime buckling under the weight of almost 17,000 units of competency requirements and divestment, disinterest and disconnect from years of patches, bolt-ons and tweaks.

“The critical issues from MTAA and Member experience are bipartisan fixes to skilled migration, rebalancing Vocational Education and Training as a pathway of opportunity, simplifying and fixing the training and assessment regime by trying something new, not something the same; recognising and respecting the role of industry training providers and stopping the pendulum of public purse strings from constantly swinging between public-privatepublic VET provision.”