VET News

Boosting Investment in Education, Training and Employment

The Morrison Government is investing $51 billion in education and research to help drive Australia's recovery from COVID-19.  This investment guarantees an injection of support for essential services, including the provision of additional university places and short courses, university research, a range of projects to help support students, families, and school communities impacted by COVID-19, and Child Care Subsidy payments.

Record funding is also being invested in Australian schools to ensure all students have the necessary skills for future study or work and there will also be guaranteed funding for all higher education institutions in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The 2020-2021 Budget announced this week also includes a number of measures designed to assist job seekers gain employment and assist small and family businesses recovering from the challenges presented by COVID-19.  The key measures portfolio includes:

• JobMaker Hiring Credit - $4 billion JobMaker Hiring Credit will be payable for up to 12 months for each new job to employers who hire eligible employees aged 16-35.
• Extra Support for Job Seekers - funding a range of measures to help job seekers as they search for employment.
• New Employment Service Model - allowing jobseekers to manage their job search requirements online.
• More Support for Small and Family Business - investing more than $26.2 million to enable small businesses to access the benefits of digital technology.
• Supporting new apprenticeships

The Prime Minister has said that the importance of vocational education and training in Australia cannot be underestimated, and certainly, our economic recovery from COVID-19 will be a skills-led recovery.   To this end, the Morrison Government will be investing an additional $1.2 billion to support Australian businesses to employ 100,000 new apprentices or trainees as part of our COVID-19 economic recovery plan.  

Any business or Group Training Organisation that engages an Australian Apprentice on or after 5 October 2020 may be eligible for a subsidy of 50 per cent of wages paid to an apprentice until 30 September 2021, to a maximum of $7,000 per quarter.

Minister for Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business, Senator the Hon Michaelia Cash said the measure builds on the existing $2.8 billion Supporting Apprentices and Trainees wage subsidy that is helping employers to retain their apprentices and trainees.

Additionally, Australians will also now benefit from a new one-stop-shop career information website with the launch of the 'Your Career' website.  The first release of the 'Your Career' website designed by the National Careers Institute will help people of all ages plan, navigate and manage their careers.

To access further information on the budget, boosting apprenticeships and the Your Career website, click on the links provided below:

What information do you need before taking on an Apprentice or Trainee?  To help answer this and other questions, the Australian Apprenticeship and Traineeship Information Service (AATIS) is carrying out a survey.  Click here to participate in this survey.

Date posted Oct 8, 2020