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Australian businesses to pay for skills shortage
The Budget 2017: Funding apprenticeships through a levy on business sponsors.
Again we see our political leaders passing the blame for their own inadequacies to immigrants.
The Australian business community cannot be held to ransom over the political failure to adequately fund and support the training of Australian skilled workers. Realistically this is an additional tax (just another term for levy) to be imposed on business to further disadvantage small business. The very Australian businesses that are suffering from the skills shortage, are being expected to foot the bill.
Assistant Minister for Vocational Education and Skills Karen Andrews, is encouraging Australians to participate in apprenticeships through the inspiring efforts of volunteer celebrity ambassadors. And this is a great program. Work, is so important to our human dignity, and our identities. Learning a trade can provide a great source of pride, income, and opportunity. So perhaps rather than blaming immigrants for taking Australian jobs, we should be asking why there is a skills shortage in the first place. It is not because Australians are not willing to work, and it is not because employers would prefer to employ foreign labour. So given these are not the causes of the problem, they cannot be reversed as a solution.
Emma Espino
Migration Client Manager
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Comments
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Friday, 12 May 2017
I agree, the Australian apprenticeship scheme is not working. I run a bricklaying business with my partner, and we know first hand how hard it is to find skilled workers, and apprentices. So much of the problem comes down to privilege. There is an opportunity cost to taking up an apprenticeship, or a degree. The cost is to sacrifice income now, for future income. And for a tradesman, there is the opportunity cost of lost time (which is money) in training up an apprentice almost as an act of charity.
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Friday, 12 May 2017I truly agree. I worked in the area and have first hand experience at knowing that government providing payment directly to employer does not work, saw many, many employers collect money from government and soon as payment finished those people were tossed out, also many employers put money in their pockets not into training. We were told to go out and talk to the employers and explain how they would have more money if they had apprenteships. The system as is does not work, also spoken to many youths including my own son re apprentiships and no one is prepare to take it on as they have to work extremelly long hours at time and the payments they get are not much more than the dole, so they prefer not to do it since they know it would take around 3 years before they can consider getting a reasonable wage.
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Thursday, 11 May 2017
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Friday, 12 May 2017
As with the other factors, this will add to the cost of running small businesses and thus become a disincentive for self employment. No Australian business prefers to employ foreign workers unless the business demands.
· Emma - Espino likes this comment. -
Friday, 12 May 2017
I agree. The reason I have taken on so many workers who are on a visa is not because I wont hire Australians. Its because the immigrant workers are the only ones who turn up for the interviews and are willing to do the work. Now I have to pay extra because ive hired the only people who are willing to work! Its totally unfair and it hurts me as a small business.
· Emma - Espino likes this comment. -
Monday, 15 May 2017
What an ill conceived scheme by the Government and a very thinly veiled new tax on Australian business.
Currently businesses must spend at least 1% of their payroll on training their Australian staff, if they want to access the subclass 457 program. This is a huge incentive to train and upskill Australian staff and employ apprentices and trainees.
Under this new proposal, they will have to pay a training levy directly into the Government coffers, which the Government will no doubt squander.
Businesses will stop training their Australian staff as the training budget will be totally taken by this new Government levy.
So ultimately this will hurt Australian workers. -
Tuesday, 16 May 2017
The policy makers should have experience in running small businesses themselves over an extended period of time before they should be allowed to make decisions for the business community. The struggles and the hard work by the small business owners often goes unnoticed and what does gets around, is the prejudicial opinion of the general public that these small businesses make a lot of money. It is time that employers are given incentives to remain in business rather than encouraging them to quit from the game.
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Wednesday, 17 May 2017
I personally don't think the levy is such a bad idea. I found that many small businesses do not know how to 'spend' money on training (as required under Migration Regulations), they often just pick and buy any course for an employee and the employee doesn't even go. The best training is most often 'on the job' by people who are already working in the business and through correction of mistakes. If the levy is between $1-2K per worker I think the businesses can afford it and might find it easier to comply, at least their Australian workers do not have to do useless courses and be absent from work. The fact that the money is going to the government coffers and will be wasted may be bad for the economy, but not necessarily for the small businesses who employ foreign workers. for most businesses the levy per foreign worker will work out to be less than 1% of the total payroll. Only those businesses that employ mostly foreign workers might find that the levy works out to be more than what they have to 'spend' now.
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Monday, 22 May 2017
This is a very narrow assessment of a very complex situation.
Although it may suite some small business, overall it will be detrimental to most businesses of varying size.
The main issue is not only the cost, but it will disincentives business from training their Australia staff as they are forced to pay a levy to the Government.
Under the current system there is a big incentive to spend money on training Australian staff and employing Apprentices, Trainees and recent graduates.
Immigration blog
When will the government realise that the Australian apprenticeship scheme is not working. I have spoken to industry people and many complain about apprentice not completing their training and running after easier opportunities. The apprenticeship period is too long and businesses don't have the patience to train new workers when most are still young and often not willing to put the hard yards in. Many businesses can recognise the diligence from new migrants who are more willing to stick at it. Unless the system changes, there will be less change in place. Instead of giving the funding to businesses who are willing to take apprentice workers (often not fully training, but making use of government funding to obtain cheap lackeys), maybe the government should incorporate education based training (work based training managed by the education provider) that is relevant to training a student to be a qualified trades person, rather than needing the extra long apprenticeships to achieve this outcome.