Australia's workforce skills shortage is the result of poor policy, inadequate management planning, bad work practices, greed and often individual laziness. These factors have combined with predictable demographic changes and the impact of globalisation over a period of three decades.
Problems of this breadth and depth require deep and fundamental changes in national policy and private/public sector organisational management. Such changes in turn require a national commitment, which is never an easy undertaking.
The problems are not unique but Australia has been one of the hardest hit, as its technology industries were amongst the weakest in terms of fractional national gross domestic product of any of the OECD nations.
Assessing the Skills Shortage
With the exception of some professions like medicine, law, accounting, some branches of engineering, and some trade areas - where formal certification protocols are mandatory and professional bodies maintain records and enforce competency standards - minimal proof of competency is required of employees. If an employee has the required qualification on paper, they are deemed qualified, despite a lack of credible practical experience, depth in theoretical skills, let alone talent in that occupational specialty.
These problems are most prominent in the technical disciplines, required to run and sustain manufacturing industries and industries supporting technically complex equipment. The defence industry and defence organisation fall into this category. The skills in question start with tradesmen, production workers, technicians, technical assistants and technical officers, through graduate support engineers, scientists, computer programmers and professional officers, to design engineers and research scientists.