Labor's jobs and skill summit has concluded with a number of measures set to be implemented.
Here are the top five takeaways which came out of the second day.
- Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil revealed the migration cap ceiling would be increase by 35,000 spots to 195,000 spots. The Labor government bumped up the number of spots as way to combat crippling labour and skills shortages across the economy, Business groups had been calling for a short-term increase to try and build back to pre-pandemic levels.
- Agriculture minister Murray Watt announced a joint working group with the National Farmers Federation and unions to look at chronic labour shortages across the agricultural sector. The group is poised to look at how to fill existing gaps and to attract more people to the industry.
- Home Affairs will employ 500 more people to try and get through the backlog of existing visa applications. Ms O'Neil said there was priority getting these people into the country to begin working. It will be at a cost of $36.1 million.
- Improved employment opportunities for people living with disabilities was also raised as an area for reform. Social Services minister Amanda Rishworth noted more work needed to be done with disability working schemes and the social security system.
- Treasurer Jim Chalmers revealed 36 workable outcomes from the summit. Immediate actions included the acceleration of 465,000 additional fee-free TAFE places and reducing complexities within the better-off-overall-test in relation to enterprise bargaining. The outcomes also point for more work on supporting clean energy supply chains and better policies to address worker shortages in regional Australia.
