Regional and national experts and leaders in business, training and government will meet next week to discuss the Hunter's workforce challenges and highlight how the region is meeting its potential for business growth in emerging industries.
The Powering Business 2050: Emerging Industries and the Future of Work summit, to be held on June 22-23, is designed to connect government, industry, small-medium and large businesses, educators and trainers, to the conversation around workforce development as a comprehensive and collaborative process with a focus on the future.
"The summit was grown out of ongoing conversations we are having at Business Hunter with business and industry that the workforce pipeline issues that are being experienced in the Hunter aren't going to go away without some coordination and planning across the region," Business Hunter chief executive Bob Hawes said.
"This is being felt right now, with a general labour shortage, but when you talk about the emerging industries - the new energy economy, frontier industries like cyber, aerospace and defence, and technology and advanced manufacturing - the region needs to look deeper."
The summit's program seeks to address current, but also longer term trends and workforce requirements to ensure the region is capable of equipping industry with the workforce it needs not only for the present but coming decades.
"Our workforce in the Hunter has grown by over 30,000 in the last ten years and there is nothing to suggest under a "business as usual" growth scenario we would not see it grow by another 30,000 over the next ten years," Mr Hawes said.
"However, the reality is we currently have the opportunity to move the region to another level in responding to the pulses of the new industries even allowing for an energy transition.
"Estimates for the 'new' workforce scale between another 10,000 and 30,000. How do we achieve this? What are the constraints across skills, technology and people? The Summit will explore these questions."
Hunter Joint Organisation chief executive Joe James said member councils had identified jobs and a growing economy as a key strategic priority for the Hunter Region.
"The Hunter JO has been a key advocate in this space through our work around the Hunter 2050 program, which was formed as a regional response to economic resilience and aims to support and influence the state and federal government to ensure that investment is directed to initiatives that will have an enduring benefit in transforming the Hunter's economy," Mr James said.
"Government, at all levels, has a role in setting the groundwork for economic development, and local government has a significant role in setting policy parameters, influencing land use planning and demonstrating leadership to make the Hunter an attractive place to do business and ensuring solutions are tailored to the place, its people, its geography, and its connections."
