The New South Wales Government has launched its new Skills Plan, aiming to address skills shortages in industries such as renewable energy, manufacturing and construction.
The first in 15 years, the ambitious blueprint will help guide the transformation of vocational education and training (VET) and works together with a new State Migration Plan, which aims to attract skilled workers from overseas to address shortages while driving New South Wales’s economic growth.
With job vacancies in New South Wales’s critical skills areas such as construction, caring industries and advanced manufacturing at 175,000 in the year to October 2024, the New South Wales Government said that this plan will help focus efforts in the vocational sector, building the workforce needed to deliver on government priorities and supporting essential services in the community.
With 44 per cent of occupations in New South Wales facing shortages, the plan focuses on:
Priority skills – directing funding and training to areas with the highest demand. The critical skills areas prioritised in the plan are:
- Construction – infrastructure and housing
- Net zero and energy transition
- Digital and cyber
- Care and support economy
- Agriculture and agrifood
Local skills – ensuring local communities have a say with a new regional planning model to meet local needs.
Skills for young people – giving school students and young people opportunities and pathways to local jobs.
The New South Wales Skills Plan aligns with national priorities under the Federal Government’s National Skills Agreement, addressing Closing the Gap, net zero transformation and VET qualification reforms.
Key initiatives to be developed under the plan include:
- A new regional skills planning and governance model to address the severe skills and labour shortages in regional and remote areas
- An annual State of the System Report to monitor system performance and the progress of the New South Wales Skills Plan
- Building on the findings of the New South Wales VET Review, the plan outlines actions such as boosting recruitment of skilled workers, enhancing teacher capacity in high-demand fields like STEM, and modernising TAFE NSW to ensure it remains at the heart of the VET sector
By fostering partnerships between industry, schools, and training organisations, the New South Wales Skills Plan will build a flexible, high-quality VET system to secure the workforce state needs now and into the future.
New South Wales Minister for Skills, TAFE and Tertiary Education, Steve Whan, said that this plan is a game changer for the state’s vocational education and training sector.
“It is about ensuring our workforce has the skills needed to drive New South Wales’s future prosperity and address the critical shortages we face across key industries,” Mr Whan said.
