Apprenticeship boost just ‘catch up’ after eight-year decline: Labor

The number of Aussie apprentices has dropped over eight years, and $2.7bn in the budget to encourage businesses to hire more trainees is just ‘catch-up footy’, Labor says.

A $2.7 billion funding boost to create 170,000 new apprenticeships by next March is too little, too late after a 36 per cent drop in the number of Australians in training over eight years, Federal Labor says.

Opposition employment spokesman Richard Marles has criticised the skills package in the 2021 Budget as “nothing more than catch-up footy” given the decline in apprenticeships in the eight years the Coalition has been in government.

There were 264,425 Australians in training as of September 2020, which is about 148,300 fewer than 2013, according to data provided to Senate Estimates.

In South Australia, it dropped 44 per cent from about 33,220 people in training to 18,581 over the eight years.

There has been an uptick in SA since 2018, when the number of people in training dropped to about 15,900, National Centre for Vocational Education Research data shows.

The number of Aussie apprentices has dropped over eight years, and $2.7bn in the budget to encourage businesses to hire more trainees is just ‘catch-up footy’, Labor says. Picture: Supplied

“Eight years of neglect to the skills sector cannot be erased in one budget,” Mr Marles said.

“After years of funding cuts to the sector and fewer apprentices, Scott Morrison is now telling Australians they should believe he will now more than double the national total in 18 months,” he said.

Employment Minister Stuart Robert has rejected the criticism, saying: “It is the Morrison Government who protected jobs, including apprentices, and our economy at the height of the pandemic through JobKeeper.”

Since October, when the Federal Government launched the Boosting Apprenticeship Commencements wage subsidy to encourage businesses to hire new trainees, more than 53,800 employers have registered to claim the subsidy for about 141,400 new apprentices.

In SA, about 8700 new apprentices have been created.

The budget extended the wage subsidy until March 31, 2022 and increased the number of apprentice places that can be supported to 270,000 in total.

State Skills Minister David Pisoni said SA now had more than 18,000 apprentices in training for the first time in five years after a 66 per cent decline under the former state Labor Government.

He attributed the rebound to the state government’s $280 million funding increase for skills and training programs.