Repairing Universities & Skills Key to Meeting COVID-Era Challenges

by Alison Pennington

Share

Training must play a vital role in reorienting the economy after the pandemic, supporting workers training for new jobs including millions of young people entering a depressed labour market without concrete pathways to work. But what kind of jobs will we be doing in 2040? And how prepared is Australia’s skills system (and universities specifically) to play this important role now?

Our Senior Economist Alison Pennington was interviewed by UTS The Social Contract podcast on how COVID-19 is reshaping relations between universities, government and industry. 

Alison explains how the pandemic economic crisis presents significant challenges to Australia’s fragmented, underfunded and unplanned skills system wounded from decades of failed marketisation policies, and why sustained public investments in skills and jobs pathways will be essential to solving our economic and social challenges. 

Listen to the episode on Whooshkaa. She is joined by Megan Lilly, head of Workforce Development at the Australian Industry Group.

You might also like

Young woman using cell phone to send text message on social network at night. Closeup of hands with computer laptop in background

“Right to Disconnect” Essential as Devices Intrude Into Workers’ Lives

Australia’s Parliament is set to pass a new set of reforms to the Fair Work Act and other labour laws, that would enshrine certain protections for workers against being contacted or ordered to perform work outside of normal working hours. This “Right to Disconnect” is an important step in limiting the steady encroachment of work

Closing Loopholes: Important repairs to the industrial relations system, no more, no less

by Fiona Macdonald in The New Daily

Labour hire workers can no longer be paid less than employees doing the same job in their workplaces as a result of industrial reforms passed by Parliament. However, other important reforms to close loopholes in employment laws and stop exploitation of workers and avoidance of standards won’t be voted on in Parliament until next year.