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Career and Transition Opportunities, March - May 2023
AUKUS: The Journey Starts on Australia's Biggest Skills Challenge
TAFEs around the country are set to play a central role as Australia develops the workforce capacity and skills for the $368m.
The AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine program in partnership with the United States and the United Kingdom is described as “the biggest industrial undertaking in Australia's history".
AUKUS will see an estimated 20,000 new jobs, many in the VET sector in areas of advanced manufacturing, engineering and trades, including welding, fitting, boilermaking and electrotechnology.
Skills Academy to Harness Expertise
The centrepiece of the workforce build-up will be a dedicated skills academy in South Australia, with links to TAFE and the VET sector around the country, built on a similar model to that in the US and UK for their nuclear submarine programs. The government estimates 4000 construction jobs will be required to build the submarine construction facility at the Osborne naval shipyard in South Australia.
A further 3000 jobs will be needed for the $8 billion expansion of HMAS Stirling in Western Australia which will be home to the nuclear-powered submarines from the early 2030s. The Minister for Skills and Training Brendan O’Connor said the task of delivering the skills for the initiative would require a national effort.
“It does centre around South Australia and Western Australia, but the demand is so great, that we'll have to call upon other parts of the country to supply the skills,” he said.
The skills academy in South Australia will build on the work of Australia’s US and UK partners in delivering the complex skills needed for their own submarine programs.
“There's no doubt (the skills academies) work because the completion rate of apprenticeships that go through the skills academies in countries like Britain and the United States is very, very high,” Mr O’Connor said.
For any questions, please email Mr Stephen Kernutt.