Senate debates

Wednesday, 3 February 2021

Questions without Notice

Apprenticeships

2:21 pm

Photo of Michaelia CashMichaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Hughes for her question. As we know, the Morrison government is investing in ensuring that Australia has the skilled workforce that Australia needs. Without a doubt, looking at the Morrison government's investments, we have made skills development the absolute heart of our economic recovery from COVID-19. In fact, as we now emerge in 2021 from the impacts of COVID-19, we will continue to build on our record of skills reform, to support, in particular, new apprentices into training. Two of the signature policies of the coalition government are the JobTrainer policy, signed with all states and territories, a joint commitment to releasing almost 320,000 new low-cost or free training places into the training space—the key is, in areas of labour market demand—and Boosting Apprenticeship Commencements.

It's been a tough year for employers, and the Boosting Apprenticeship Commencements wage subsidy is all about assisting employers to bring a new apprentice or trainee into their workplace. The Boosting Apprenticeship Commencements subsidy supports employers of any size, in any geographic location, in any industry, to sign up a new apprentice with a 50 per cent wage subsidy, up to $7,000 a quarter, running through until 30 September 2021. There are still nine months of the program to run. What we've seen to date is over 29,000 employers—and I'm very pleased to say this includes 21,000 small businesses—register over 73,760 new trainees or apprentices for the program. This includes 5,600 bricklayers, carpenters and joiners, 4,700 electricians, 4,600 sales assistants, 4,000 automotive electricians and over 3,800 hospitality workers.

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