Jobs summit goal to build pathway of opportunity

Treasurer Jim Chalmers hopes the jobs summit marks the start of a ‘fresh approach to problem-solving’. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

There’s a busy road that cuts across Brisbane’s southern suburbs, about 25 minutes’ drive from the CBD – 20 on a good day. It’s called Compton Road. On the Brisbane side of Compton Road, the unemployment rate is below 4 per cent. On the Logan side – where I grew up, and where I live – it’s stuck above 6 per cent.

I represent the community I’ve lived in and loved since I was a kid because I don’t want the kids growing up here to be denied the opportunities enjoyed by others who live just up the motorway.

Crossing Compton Road helps to tell a tale of two cities with two very different stories – a complicated picture you can replicate for communities across the country.

In the eastern suburbs of inner Brisbane, the unemployment rate has averaged 1.7 per cent over six months – in Wide Bay it has averaged 6.7 per cent. In Sydney’s Sutherland Shire it has averaged 1.9 per cent, but in the southwestern suburbs it’s 6.8 per cent.

Confronting challenges such as this is one of the reasons for this week’s Jobs and Skills Summit. When more than 100 leaders, thinkers, employers, entrepreneurs and advocates gather in Canberra on Thursday, plus state and local government leaders and MPs, it will be the culmination of more than 100 consultations that have occurred in the lead-up.

To those who wonder why this is necessary at a time of historically low unemployment, we say that’s precisely why now is the right time – because as we’ve learned, a low national unemployment number doesn’t tell the whole story of skills shortages, labour shortages, weak productivity and stagnant wages all at the same time.

Last Friday I had my own local jobs and skills summit in Logan. From that productive session, I took with me the critical need to re-establish the link between national economic success and what it means for local communities like ours. There are more people in work than ever before – and more opportunities for work. But those opportunities don’t mean a whole lot if they aren’t spreading to places like Logan, Lismore or Launceston.

Australian Labor’s reason for being – our purpose in government – is to make sure there are more opportunities for more people in more parts of the country. Intergenerational mobility and working-class aspiration are core objectives. That’s what drives my work – seeing young people in my community with all the intellect and ambition to succeed but lacking the pathways to realise it.

We can see this playing out at a national level. A pincer-like problem has developed that is holding back the capacity of the economy and the potential of our people.

First, there’s a severe skilled-labour shortage acting as a handbrake on growth, with employers desperate to hire more workers with the right qualifications.

Second, our higher education and training systems haven’t given enough Australians the skills they need for these jobs – creating a jobs-skills mismatch.

We already know further education is a key indicator for future success in the labour market. About 80 per cent of long-term unemployed Australians – people who have been searching for work for more than a year, without success – hold less than a bachelor degree.

And the opportunities that future jobs bring also heighten the threats for people who don’t have the right skills. Think about where the jobs growth is coming from: software and application programming, technical professions, nursing, aged and disabled care are key examples. All of them require the learning of advanced skills.

Nine in 10 future jobs will require post-school qualifications – and four of these will require at least vocational-level training.

But of all the vocational education and training courses that were started in 2016, fewer than half have been completed.

In 2008, when the Bradley Review into higher education was handed down, fewer than 30 per cent of 25-34-year-olds had a bachelor degree. A target of 40 per cent was set for 2020 – and that’s been surpassed, to 43 per cent.

At the same time, a target was set to bring university enrolments from lower socio-economic backgrounds from 15 per cent to 20 per cent. Nearly 15 years later, that number is still around 15 per cent.

So, more people are getting university-level qualifications, but not the people for whom it could make the most intergenerational difference. And plenty of people are starting vocational training, but fewer than half are finishing.

These are some of the challenges we need to confront later this week at the summit. We’ve already got plans we’re implementing – such as 20,000 new university places for disadvantaged people, and fee-free TAFE – but we don’t pretend to have a solution to every problem. We don’t have all the answers – to pretend otherwise would be arrogance, and it’s that sort of arrogance that has helped create the circumstances our economy is now in.

The summit is part of our ambition to bring Australians together, take them into our confidence about the growing economic challenges, and unleash a national conversation about the best way forward. That the summit is even being held is a marker of success; for the first time in a long time, different groups of people are prepared to lay down their arms and look for some common ground – to agree wherever they can, and disagree respectfully where they must.

No one is going to walk out of Parliament House on Friday afternoon with everything they want. And none of the challenges we tackle over those two days will be completely solved by the end. But it marks a new beginning – a fresh approach to problem-solving that our country desperately needs.

And, with more work, I hope it can be a new beginning for the kids south of Compton Road, too.

Jim Chalmers is the Australian Treasurer.