A new study by the Community Services and Health Industry Skills Council (CS&HISC) entitled “Building a Healthy Future: Skills, Planning and Enterprise” attempts to chart Australia’s future workforce and skill development needs in the face of continuous evolution of industry issues. The 2015 Environmental Scan has been produced with the assistance of funding provided by the Commonwealth Government through the Department of Education and Training.
The study shows that healthcare and community services providers are enhancing productivity through workforce planning and development. It was seen that employment in community services increased by 80% between 2000 and 2014. It is estimated that 229,400 new jobs will be created in the Community Services and Health industry between the years 2013 and 2018 (figures from Australian Government Department of Employment, 2014).
Graph showing projected growth in health and community service specific occupational groups. The graph shows that the highest projected growth is in aged and disability care.The figure above shows the ten occupational groups specific to health and community services that are predicted to have the largest actual growth between 2013 and 2018. From these projections, it is suggested that there may be particularly strong growth in VET-qualified occupations such as Aged Care and disability support workers (Aged and Disabled Carers). These projected changes in the workforce have significant implications for the delivery of education and training. Already, there have been large increases in the uptake of training in these areas.
In aged care there were 350,000 workers in 2012, this will need to increase to 1.3 million by 2050 (King et al. 2013). These statistics show the exploding demand in this industry.
Authors: Jasmine James & Usha Sunil
References
- Australian Government Department of Employment (2014). Australian Jobs 2014, accessed 4 September 2014 <http://docs.employment.gov.au/documents/australian-jobs-2014-publication>
- Community Services and Health Industry Skills Council (2014). Environmental Scan 2014: Agenda for Change, Sydney.
- King, D., Mavromaras, K., Wei, Z. et al. (2013) The aged care workforce 2012: final report, Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing, Canberra.
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