Jobs summit: TAFE, migration reforms to support aged care workforce

Improving access to TAFE training and boosting skilled migration to increase the supply of workers into the struggling health and aged care sector were major outcomes from the government's Jobs and Skills summit. 

Nearly 150 peak unions, business leaders and politicians gathered at Parliament House in Canberra to hash out solutions to aid the nation’s economy. 

Securing Australia’s future aged care workforce emerged as headline issue during the two-day event. 

In her keynote address, Grattan Institute chief Danielle Wood laid out the confronting reality facing the industry.

She quoted recent CEDA estimates that Australia would need an additional 35,000 care workers annually to meet future care needs. 

“This problem has been a long time in the making,” Wood said. 

“High workloads and low pay are pushing people out of these sectors and making it unattractive for others to enter.

“Properly remunerating care work is going to be critical to providing the quality and quantity of health, disability, and aged care services that our older population will need.”

Sue Gordon, a professor of healthy ageing at Flinders University, said aged care was at a ‘crisis point’ with around 70 per cent of providers losing money.

She said better training for workers was crucial to meeting increased demands for specialised care. 

“We do not have an adequate workforce in numbers or capability to meet the needs of older Australians,” she said. 

“We need to have an agreement that a certain amount of learning and skills has equivalence in the VET and tertiary sectors.

“We can no longer have these silos of aged, primary and disability care. It isn’t working for us. We need to provide flexibility.”

Home affairs minister Clare O’Neil recently announced that Australia would raise its permanent skilled migration cap to 195,000 for the current financial year.

She said this would help to attract ‘thousands of nurses’ into the healthcare system.

Aged & Community Care Providers Association chief Paul Sadler said the move was an important step, but stressed an ‘urgent’ need to lift wages.

“We need to recruit more staff as quickly as possible as the number of people leaving aged care is increasing the pressure on those staff who remain,” he said.

Changes to the age pension rules to allow older people to remain in the workforce longer was another major outcome announced at the end of the summit.

Under the plan, pensioners will receive a one-off income credit – allowing working seniors to earn an extra $4,000 in this financial year without losing their pension.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the overhaul “will be available until June 30, 2023, subject to the passage of legislation”.

National Seniors chief Ian Henschke welcomed the changes, but said more needed to be done to simplify Australia’s ‘complicated’ pension system.

“We are very happy to see the Jobs and Skills Summit take seriously our campaign to let pensioners work as a means of addressing the jobs and skills shortage,” he said.

“However, this new ‘income credit’ still puts the onus on aged pensioners to report their income to Centrelink which is a major disincentive for pensioners to return to work."

Overall, the summit delivered 36 'concrete' plans to tackle Australia’s economic challenges.

This included an additional $1 billion in joint federal-state funding for fee-free TAFE, amending the Fair Work Act to strengthen access to flexible working arrangements, and improving access to jobs and training pathways for women.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers wrapped up the event which he said had "exceeded even our most optimistic expectations”.

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