Regional Minister meets with local RDA to review jobs shortage
Regional Development Australia Greater Whitsunday (RDA GW) and other RDAs across the nation met with the Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories Kristy McBain to discuss the skills shortage affecting regional Australia.
This is also a key focus for the upcoming National Jobs and Skills Summit, to be held at Parliament House in Canberra on September 1-2.
RDA GW CEO Robert Cocco said jobs and skills development and strategies need to be integrated across local, regional, state and national scales and “at present, the jobs and skills development environment seems disconnected across geographic scales”.
“Solutions are not just about increasing skills for jobs of the future, they’re required solutions for today’s jobs needs as well – balanced regional community development caters for all types of jobs and skills,” said Mr Cocco.
“Jobs and skills development solutions are not meeting regional employment needs, as many regional areas face a fundamental issue of lack of people to fill jobs.
“Many regions highlighted very low unemployment, high workforce participation rates and high levels of full-time work for those already in jobs.”
The Minister and RDA GW also discussed further incentives and programs to support regional population attraction and retention, including improved levels of inter and intrastate migration to regions and the opportunities aligned to international immigration and more active immigration policy and programs supporting skilled workforce attraction.
Another talking point was how an increase in jobs requires activation of housing/dwelling solutions, due to the current low availability of housing. This covered off on:
The potential for increasing investor confidence to build dwellings for sale/lease in many regions – a considerable challenge in many regions where reginal economies are dominated by fewer commodities and thus are impacted by prosperity of those dominant commodities through their ups and downs.
Investors needing financial and tax incentives to support more active investor confidence.
How high deposit rates for some remote and rural postcodes for dwellings are linked to default risk ratings, following the regional economy and commodity downturns.
Increasing construction of aged care residential facilities to accommodate the aging population in regional areas, and how this could make housing/dwellings available.
Reduction in green and red tape for developers of urban estates and provision of one-stop-shop support services program to aid developers at a local government scale.
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