No quick fix to work skills issue

No one can deny that Australia is facing a labour supply problem, not merely a skill shortage, and nowhere is that fact more acute than in WA.

With an estimated $250 billion in resource and infrastructure projects planned, under way or under consideration, there's little doubt the State will struggle to meet both its immediate and long-term workforce needs.

Existing schemes have proved themselves incapable of satisfying the resource sector's seemingly insatiable appetite for skilled workers. So it is perhaps understandable that even news of a 63 per cent rise in the number of 457 visa scheme holders migrating to WA between July last year and April appears to have done little to allay industry fears.

As part of the Gillard Government's strategy to address this crisis on a national level, the recent Federal Budget contained details of a new enterprise migration agreement designed to assist Australian companies forced to rely on skilled foreign labour to complete major infrastructure projects. In the current environment the skills shortage is becoming a key factor in determining the feasibility of major projects and the enterprise migration agreement will certainly provide one avenue allowing companies to tap into some of the skilled workforce they need in the short to medium term.

However, as our infrastructure needs grow, both government and industry need to consider long-term solutions that allow for both attraction and retention of the right skills. Sophisticated workforce planning takes time, but its importance cannot be overstated in an environment where low unemployment and high demand have seen salary costs escalate to the point where there are welders in WA said to be earning $350,000 for a 30-week year.

As it stands, the enterprise migration agreement will not address the serious underlying issues of labour market participation and up-skilling - problems for which there are no easy answers.

Beyond this, there are several aspects of the enterprise migration agreements that will affect their capacity to improve workforce security for industry, particularly in relation to the resource sector.

Chief among those will be the ability of sub-contractors to seamlessly participate in the EMA process, the ability of business to bear the cost of required training quotas and the evidentiary burden of proving a commitment to the local labour market.

For the large part, this debate seems to have been hijacked by immigration and population fears, despite the fact those concerns appear to be at odds with informed analysis from both the National Resources Sector Taskforce and the Productivity Commission.

With its ageing population and dwindling migrant numbers, Australia urgently needs to develop a collaborative framework to address its local labour market requirements. A complex and sophisticated response is needed to the numerous challenges facing many parts of Australia struggling to source and retain appropriately skilled workers.

Governments need to understand that for many workers the decision to migrate, particularly to regional Australia where the labour shortage is most acute, comes down to factors beyond the employment opportunity itself. Lifestyle factors like housing affordability, proximity to services and the availability of public transport play a substantial role.

The challenge for government, local authorities and employers is to consider these broader issues hand-in-hand with the immigration solution and accept there are no quick fixes to the problem of workforce sourcing.

A long-term solution will require a considered approach to addressing the factors that not only attract workers to Australia, but those which keep them here.

Mark Wright is a partner and national immigration leader with professional services firm Deloitte