Businesses across NSW face a real challenge in securing qualified staff. Right across the state skill shortages are one of the biggest issues facing almost every business. 

However, despite these shortages we have a youth unemployment rate in the double digits and in some regional areas of NSW, youth unemployment exceeds 20 per cent. Fortunately, rates in the Central West are lower at 8 per cent and in the Far West and Orana it is 4.7 per cent.

That said, there is always more that can be done to help our local youth secure meaningful employment and contribute to our regional communities.

Sadly more often than not young job-seekers don’t have the right raining or skills to secure the job opportunities they are desperately seeking.

To make matters worse, many young job seekers have incurred debt completing training that will not assist them in securing a meaningful career or have been trapped in a school system that measures success by whether or not they secure a university place. 

Providing the skills and training necessary to overcome barriers to securing employment should be the number one priority of the next government of NSW.

There are some things we can and must do to get the process under way. For starters we need to address the perceptions of Vocational Education and Training.

This can be done by providing parents and students with the facts and more contemporary advice on where the job opportunities are today and in the future.

Importantly, we need to provide more flexible pathways that promote the value, importance and opportunities provided by trades training. Addressing skill shortages and tacking youth unemployment must be a priority for all sides of politics.  

The NSW Business Chamber is calling for additional measures to help address this issue these include a new $100 million youth re-engagement fund to get young people back into training and into work, and a target of 20,000 school based apprenticeships and traineeships to be delivered over the next four years.

The Chamber is also calling for the funding of Career Advice Hubs that provide contemporary industry careers advice and improvements to our TAFE system that improve enrolment processes and deliver more contemporary course content, and support for a complementary private Registered Training Organisation network.

In New South Wales the need for skilled workers will become even more urgent as the state embarks on a period of record investment in infrastructure.

The next four years will see somewhere in the order of $87 billion invested in new hospitals, schools and roads right across the state.

This investment provides a once-in-a-generation opportunity to train our future labour force and, importantly, help start the careers of thousands of young NSW job-seekers.

Skilling the state’s workforce for the future and tackling youth unemployment is key to keeping NSW the number one economy in Australia.