Illawarra leaders push parliamentarians on jobs crisis ahead of summit

Alison Byrnes, Stephen Jones and Fiona Phillips hosted a forum on Friday to gather ideas ahead of the federal Jobs and Skills Summit, to be held on September 1-2.

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Key for those in attendance was addressing the shortage of workers across industries.

Big Fat Smile CEO Jenni Hutchins said her organisation was looking to fill 60 roles, just under a tenth of the entire workforce.

Across the entire early learning and out of school hours care industry, workers were burnt out after remaining open through COVID and dealing with significant increased needs from children who have returned after two years with little socialisation outside the home.

"I wanted to go in there and say, we're losing our people," Ms Hutchins said.

Jobs figures released this week showed that for the first time on record there are more job openings than unemployed people.

Unemployment reached 3.4 per cent in July, a figure not seen since 1974.

In the Illawarra, the change has been stark, Mr Jones said.

"10 years ago, there were not enough jobs and too many workers. Today, we have more jobs than we do workers."

Attendees proposed a range of solutions, which covered issues as diverse as opening up pathways for migrants, addressing housing shortages and raising pay.

Ms Hutchins said in her case, a lack of professional identity and low pay in the sector was hampering her ability to find staff.

"We're not proud of the care economy, we're part of the education system, our teachers and educators want to be paid fairly, they need up to a 25 per cent pay increase, to be paid on par with their sectoral peers in education, in primary school and high school."

While unemployment fell in July, so did the participation rate, albeit after months of more people joining the workforce.

Mr Jones said he would be taking to Canberra methods to lift workforce participation.

"Everyone's looking to immigration as an issue," he said. "It is a medium term solution, and it's on our radar. But there's also a lot of interest in how we can improve the participation rate, for people who are already here, increasing the hours for part time workers, or get older workers who might be retired or semi-retired back into the workforce."

Ms Hutchins said that a lack of staff in her industry was also hampering participation.

"People are looking after their children because they can't get early learning and care because we can't get staff. We are a cog in the wheel that's not working as well as we could, because we can't get our educators."

Ms Byrnes said a key message she would be communicating at the summit was education.

"Another key issue raised was education - from early childhood education to school education to TAFE and university and making sure they are equipped to educate and train our local workers for next generation jobs in new and existing industries."

In the lead up to the election, Labor campaigned on reducing insecure work, including those on short-term or casual contracts and others working in the gig economy.

At Big Fat Smile, a lack of applications for permanent staff meant the company was relying more on costly job agency-provided staff, something Ms Hutchins hoped to reduce.

Mr Jones said businesses that were offering secure work were the ones able to find staff and workers were walking away from labour-hire and platform economy businesses.

"There are whole industries which rely on it, and these are the same industries which are struggling to attract and retain workers."

Coming away from Friday's forum, Ms Hutchins said she was positive that local concerns were being heard, but that change would come at a cost.

"Incrementally we can make a change and make a difference. Are we going to see it overnight? I don't think so. But pay is absolutely, hands down, the biggest issue for our people."

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