Industry insights on skills needs
There are nine detailed IRC skills forecasts for the Manufacturing and Related Services industry, each published in late 2019. The key generic workforce skills of the combined Manufacturing IRCs are listed in each skills forecast to enable comparison with those specific to each industry sector.
The top five generic skills for the combined Manufacturing IRCs in order of priority were:
- Design mindset/Thinking critically/Systems thinking/Solving problems skills
- Technology use and application skills
- Learning agility/Information literacy/Intellectual autonomy and self-management skills
- Communication/Collaboration including virtual collaboration/Social intelligence skills
- Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) skills.
A common theme across the nine IRC skills forecasts was changing skill needs due to technological change, particularly regarding automation. Since the publications of the skills forecasts, the COVID-19 pandemic has, and continues, to impact all sectors of the broader manufacturing industry.
Against a backdrop of slowing economies and disrupted supply chains in response to COVID-19 restrictions, the effects of the pandemic renewed interest in manufacturing according to the CSIRO. In its Economic Outlook – Manufacturing, it highlighted the importance of local manufacturing noting the fragile supply chains but soaring global demand. As such, it argued innovative manufacturing can generate economic growth opportunities and equip the nation to better respond to future challenges, based on four key strategies:
- Maximise local manufacturing capabilities
- Produce and integrate superior componentry
- Move toward sustainable and agile manufacturing
- Adopt value-adding downstream processing of minerals.
In late 2020, the Australian Government released its Modern Manufacturing Strategy as part of its economic recovery response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Strategy aims to help manufacturers to scale-up, become more competitive and build more resilient supply chains. Investment is targeted to drive productivity and create jobs through six national manufacturing priority sectors, which reflect Australia’s competitive advantage.
The Strategy is supported by six National Manufacturing Priority Road Maps, each developed with industry through taskforces. These set out plans for industry and government to realise the Strategy and strengthen Australia’s manufacturing capability. The associated Manufacturing Modernisation Fund aims to address barriers to growth and innovation. As such it can be used to fast-track capital investment to take on new employees, upskill workers and invest in new technology to support Australia’s COVID-19 recovery.
In response to the Strategy, increasing changes in workforce skills requirements and ongoing disruption caused by COVID-19, the IBSA Group conducted an extensive series of research and consultation activities culminating in Scaling up: developing modern manufacturing through a skilled workforce.
This report draws together insights from industry leaders on the challenges facing the manufacturing sector and recommends skills-focused responses to support the development of a highly skilled workforce to underpin the future of manufacturing in Australia.
It also considers each Manufacturing sub-sector and reports how current industry qualifications support and relate to the modern manufacturing strategy priority sectors.
State and territory governments in Australia have also received economic recovery strategies that include responses focused on manufacturing sectors and/or investing in education and training that target specific workforce skills, for example, the New South Wales Government’s COVID-19 Economic Recovery Strategy; Queensland’s COVID-19 Economic Recovery Plan; Western Australia’s Recovery Plan Initiatives; and Tasmanian Advanced Manufacturing Plan 2024.
