"Ai Group welcomes the tabling in Federal Parliament of legislation to establish Jobs and Skills Australia (JSA). The fact that this is the first piece of legislation tabled at the first sitting of the new parliament is clear recognition of the importance and size of the challenges ahead," Innes Willox, Chief Executive of the national employer association Ai Group said today.
"We need a clear strategy to develop the high skill, high paid jobs of the future and JSA is an important opportunity to recalibrate the national strategy to achieve a highly skilled and productive Australia.
"It is important that Jobs and Skills Australia be an independent agency with a strong industry board. This will be vital in effectively meeting the current and future skilling challenges to ensure Australia is able to build a digitally transformed clean economy.
"JSA will also need to work closely with all stakeholders in the training system; employers, unions and providers. Importantly it will need to forge strong and constructive working relationship with the states and territories," Mr Willox said.
JSA will be responsible for providing advice to government to ensure the needs of the current and emerging labour market are met. This will involve workforce planning, analysis and forecasting, coupled with deep industry insights.
JSA will work closely with state and territory governments, as well as industry, employers, trade unions and training providers to ensure a shared understanding of the key issues facing Australia's labour market.
JSA will also embrace a number of other important functions including considering the resourcing and funding requirements of the VET system, research and exploring specific needs of new and emerging sectors.
