Research to tackle skills shortages in statutory roles
13 June, 2012
Skills Queensland and Kinetic Group have teamed up to undertake a research project aimed at tackling the shortage of workers in statutory roles across the resources sector.
Kinetic Group Chief Executive Officer Derek Hunter said skills shortages already exist across the industry and the turnover and increasing demand for key statutory roles is a serious concern for companies.
"The growth of the sector is increasing the demand for more workers to fill statutory positions such as supervisors, open cut examiners, deputies and occupational health and safety officers," Mr Hunter said.
"Statutory roles were identified as a critical skills shortage area in the recently released Kinetic Group Heartbeat Report, so this research is much needed.
"The Heartbeat Report identified retirement as a particularly big issue with statutory roles. Currently, around 50 per cent of open cut examiners in Queensland are aged over 50 with nearly 22 per cent eligible to retire. Compounding this is the fact that nearly half of all new examiners employed are also aged over 50.
"This research will help employers identify what up-skilling or additional training a worker requires so we have more streamlined pathways to follow into these jobs."
Skills Queensland Chief Executive Rod Camm said funding has been provided to Kinetic Group to rapidly progress the work as an important component of working with industry to address skills shortages and implement a demand driven training system.
"Statutory positions are only a small portion of the sector's total workforce, but they are vital for the operation of individual mines and for the overall expansion of the sector in Queensland," Mr Camm said.
"It is critically important we have a strong understanding of the training models which are successful in preparing individuals for these roles.
"We are also focused on getting workers in the pipeline and in the last year Skills Queensland has partnered with a number of resource companies and peak industry groups to jointly invest $37 million to train approximately 5,000 people in some of the sector's most critical skill shortage areas including mine site statutory positions and mining operations roles.
"These investments are part of Skills Queensland's four point plan developed with industry to gain a better understanding of the sector's workforce needs, build the workforce, increase workforce participation and maximise skills development."