Australian businesses can now apply for support to boost the skills of their workforce under the federal government's new $476 million Industry Skills Fund.
Assistant Minister for Education and Training Simon Birmingham said the Fund, which will provide up to 200,000 training places and skills advice for businesses over the next four years, is a key element of the Abbott Government’s Industry Innovation and Competitiveness Agenda.
"This is a new way of providing support to businesses that need to upskill or retrain their employees to enable their business to grow, diversify, adopt new technologies, or take advantage of new market opportunities,” Senator Birmingham said.
"For the first time, employers will be supported to decide what training is needed in their business, and which training provider they want to work with, to boost their business productivity and competitiveness.”
For the HVACR industry, training needs to be a priority in 2015, according to Tim Edwards, president of the Australian Refrigeration Association (ARA).
Edwards said there is a great deal of change underway and training for the entire workforce is necessary if Australia is going to keep pace with the rest of the world.
"We need to update our skills base if we are going to be using low GWP refrigerants," he said adding that Australia also needs nationally consistent skills based licensing.
"It is well understood that low GWP refrigerants require new licensing provisions because their use requires new engineering and significantly stricter risk management techniques.
"Nationally consistent skills based licensing will enable the entire industry to acquire the skills needed for low GWP refrigerants."
Under the Industry Skills Fund, priority will be given to small and medium-sized businesses, including micro businesses.
However, businesses wanting support to train workers will be required to make a contribution between 25 and 75 per cent to the cost of training.
The co-contribution rate depends on the number of employees, with smaller businesses receiving higher levels of support.
Guidelines and more information are available at www.business.gov.au