Australian employers will be invited to have their say on workforce skills and training in a national survey being conducted by the National Centre for Vocation Education Research (NCVER).
The survey aims to ask 9,000 employers from across the country and from all industry sectors about their experiences on how they meet their skill needs and how staff training needs could be better met.
Assistant Minister for Education and Training Senator Simon Birmingham said to keep businesses at the forefront of global competition they need more Australians with job-ready skills.
“The Survey of Australian Employers is an important tool to help Australian businesses, the training sector and all governments understand what’s working and where improvements need to be made," he said.
Businesses are randomly selected from the Australian Business Register to participate in the survey, which will be conducted until June 2015.
It is a biennial survey conducted on behalf of the Australian, state and territory governments and the results will be published on NCVER’s web site in late 2015.
The previous survey found that employer satisfaction with training decreased between 2011 and 2013.
To address this problem, Senator Birmingham said the federal government is assisting local businesses by providing access to a $476 million targeted training fund that will help boost productivity and competitiveness across the economy.
“Applications are now open for the new $476 million Industry Skills Fund, which will offer up to 200,000 targeted training places and support,” Senator Birmingham said.
“This fund is targeted at small and medium sized businesses that need to upskill or retrain their workers so their business can diversify or take advantage of new market opportunities.”
The fund includes a free service for eligible small businesses, to help them identify the skills they need to support growth and potential training solutions.
"The Industry Skills Fund compliments our comprehensive package of VET reforms that aim to make training more relevant to employer needs and therefore more likely to improve employment outcomes," the Senator said.
“I urge any Australian business contacted by the NCVER to take the time to answer the questions."
Further information about the Industry Skills Fund visit: www.business.gov.au. Applications will be accepted on an ongoing basis, throughout 2015.
For more information about the Survey of Australian Employers visit: www.ncver.edu.au