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This study set out to profile the electrotechnology industry workforce,
and to understand how the industry is adapting to the rapidly changing
environment, and how well it is positioned for the
future. Through an analysis of extant data, combined with 25 in-depth interviews
with contractors, training providers and vendors, this study provides
the following key messages.
- The electrotechnology industry has adapted well to the growing
demands from its customers to integrate the electrical and communications
skills
sets into a narrow range of occupations, such as electrical and
communications tradespersons. The industry response has been to use
the traditional
electrical tradespersons as the core of its skill base, up-skilling
in new technologies and the communications area predominantly by
vendor training and short courses.
- Training within the formal Australian Qualifications Framework
(AQF) structure in emerging technologies within the electrotechnology
industry
has been reactive rather than future-looking, with vendor training
filling the gaps by providing the workforce with the skills required
for new
products as they are brought to market.
- Since mid-2004 there has been a flattening of the steady increase
in skills shortages experienced over the preceding three years.
Other evidence indicates that the skills shortages remaining in
the industry
tend to be region- or occupation-specific. The challenge appears
not to lie in attracting people to the industry across the board,
but
rather, in attracting those with the appropriate skills or the
ability to gain
the appropriate skills, and to do so in the geographic regions
of high need.
- One vulnerable group of employees in the electrotechnology industry
may be non-tradespeople who have only specialist skills in the
data communications area. This group of employees tends to have lower-level
(certificate II) qualifications, and the industry tends not
to train
them up to the electrical trades certificate III level, but
rather the other way aroundótraining electricians in the data
communications area. With predictions of a downturn in the information
communications
and technology (ICT) area in the future, this creates a vulnerable
workforce group.
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