VET News

Employers Continue to Strongly Engage with Vocational Training

The latest report from the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) has found that employers continue to engage with the accredited training system while increasing their use of unaccredited and informal training in 2023.

Released on November 9, the report (2023 Survey of Employers’ Use and Views of the VET System) collected information from 6 290 employers between March and June 2023.

The biennial survey found that 56.8% of Australian employers engaged with at least one form of accredited training through the vocational education and training (VET) system in the last twelve months.

Employers can engage with accredited training in three ways: 

• by having jobs that require vocational qualifications,;
• by employing apprentices and trainees; or 
• by using other nationally recognised training.  

Employers using apprentices and trainees increased to 31.3% in 2023, up 3.9 percentage points from 2021, while employers’ use of the other forms of accredited training remained steady.

When it comes to unaccredited training, 54.4% of employers used this to meet their skill needs in 2023, an increase of 2.2 percentage points from 2021. Employers who used informal training increased to 81.2% - up 4.6 percentage points.

NCVER Managing Director Simon Walker said, “While around half of Australia’s employers use the national accredited VET system to train their staff, comparable numbers are using unaccredited training to meet their staff skill needs. 

Less than 10% of employers provided no training to their staff over the past twelve months”.

Employer satisfaction with the various forms of accredited training remained stable while satisfaction with unaccredited training increased by 2.6 percentage points to 86.1% in 2023.

Highlights:

In 2023:

• 56.8% of employers used the VET system to meet their training needs, similar to 2021. 
• 38.6% of employers had jobs that require vocational qualifications, similar to 2021. Of these, 74.0% were satisfied that vocational qualifications provide employees with the skills they need for the job.
• 31.3% of employers had apprentices and trainees, up 3.9 percentage points from 2021.  Of these, 73.2% were satisfied that apprentices and trainees are getting the skills they need from training.
• 28.5% of employers arranged or provided their employees with nationally recognised training, similar to 2021.  Of these, 78.5% were satisfied that nationally recognised training provides employees with the skills they need for the job.

Access the 2023 Survey of Employers' Use and Views of the VET System here. 

Date posted Nov 16, 2023