Back in the 1980s and 1990s, young people looking for good careers in growth sectors were encouraged to think about studying computer science.
 
That was good advice. Just ask Bill Gates.
 
But times change.
 
In 2021 renewable energy, education and the caring industries have joined information technology as boom sectors for new jobs.
 
With an ageing population, we need nurses, doctors and aged-care workers. The size of the aged and disability care workforce will need to climb by 39 per cent in the five years to 2023.
 
We also need electrical engineers, geologists and scientists to exploit the opportunities for growth in renewable energy industries as we move to a clean energy future.
 
And as renewables grow in influence, energy prices will fall, creating new opportunities in value-adding manufacturing and other industries that will also require skilled workers.
 
To meet these demands for skills, Australia should lift our investment in education and training.
 
Instead, the Morrison-Joyce government has cut funding for TAFE and skills training by $3bn during its time in office.
 
There are now 85,000 fewer Australians engaged in apprenticeships or traineeships than there were when the government took office.
 
The current gap for skilled workers we will need to fill through migration includes engineers, geologists, nurses and aged-care workers.
 
We are also short of disability service workers, midwives, welders, electricians, surveyors and biochemists.
 
And outside the sectors of acute skills shortages, Australia is not even training enough hairdressers, bricklayers, painters and carpenters.
 
This is not good enough. Skilled migration will continue to be required to meet demand for workers in a growing economy, but the first option given underemployment should be to train Australians to fill skilled jobs.
 
Training not only improves the prospects of individuals, but also strengthens our economy, allowing businesses to find the workers they need to prosper and expand.
 
That’s why a federal Labor government will rebuild Australia’s vocational education and training sector with TAFE at its heart.
 
We must do more to prepare our young people for the jobs of the future. And we must address the shameful fact many middle-aged workers whose jobs are eliminated by change find it difficult to find a new job, a problem that particularly affects older women.
 
It is a tragedy almost 40,000 Australians aged over 45 years have been unemployed for more than two years.
 
 Older workers have much to offer employers.
 
It is wasteful and wrong to throw them on the scrap heap when they could be retrained to fill the gaps in our skills base.
 
A Labor government will refocus training by working more closely with business, unions and training providers to ensure the skills we teach are the skills required by employers.
 
We will create a new and independent agency to be called Jobs and Skills Australia which will research workforce trends and provide impartial advice about what skills are needed now and what skills will be sought after in the future. Jobs and Skills Australia will be modelled on Infrastructure Australia, which works with industry and governments to research proposed road and railway projects to ensure they are funded on genuine need.
 
This evidence-based approach will transform training so it can better respond to future demand and prevent emerging industries from being held back by skills shortages.
 
A Labor government will also invest $10m on a program to create world-class training courses for workers in the emerging renewable energy industry.
 
And we will invest $100m to support 10,000 Australians to undertake New Energy Apprenticeships. Australia can be a renewable energy superpower.
 
We have abundant sun and wind resources as well as minerals such as lithium, copper and zinc – the critical raw materials needed for the booming battery industry.
 
For years Australia has shipped its rich mineral resources overseas in bulk to other nations which have processed them and sold them back to use as manufactured or processed products.
 
We should not repeat this mistake. We have a great opportunity to create a homegrown battery industry that can create jobs and export revenue.
 
But we won’t do any of this without homegrown skilled workers.
 
A Labor government will also increase the commonwealth’s commitment to training as an employer.
 
Each year the government spends billions of dollars building roads and railways. These projects employ tens of thousands of Australians.
 
Labor will create the Australian skills guarantee, under which one out of 10 jobs on federally funded worksites must be apprentices or trainees.
 
This will create jobs right across the nation.
 
Australia is blessed with magnificent natural resources.
 
But our best resource is our people.
 
We should invest in their skills.
  
This opinion piece was first published in the Herald Sun on Friday, 12 November 2021.