VET
Call to address decline in apprenticeships
The number of young people not in work or study rose sharply in the past year and one peak business council is passionate about the need to take action on the problem. By John Mitchell
If a competition were held to determine the biggest challenge facing the Australian workforce, a strong contender for the prize would be the critical decline in the number of apprentices and trainees, which is itself part of a general decline in the number of young adults in full-time work or study.
One organisation that is unwilling to sit around and watch this decline and is offering solutions to the crisis is the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry( ACCI), which issued a statement in late October calling for urgent action to boost youth employment. Responding to a Council of Australian Governments( COAG) report showing that a quarter of those in the 17-to-24 age group are not in full-time work or study – a figure that has worsened in the past five years – the ACCI called on all sides of politics to ensure the issue of training returns to the mainstream of Australia’ s political debate.
The ACCI statement said that, in the past 12 months, commencements of non-trade apprenticeships such as in retail and hospitality, which are“ a particularly effective entry point for school-leavers as they combine formal training with work experience”, have fallen by a third compared to the same period last year, with young Australians the hardest hit.
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