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

According to the National Skills Commission, of the 1.1 million people that are employed in Australia by the construction industry, I'm pleased to say that over 50 per cent of them actually have a vocational education and training, or VET, qualification. In terms of the support that the government provided, we have our Supporting Apprentices and Trainees wage subsidy. This has been absolutely critical to keeping our apprentices and trainees on the job, as I said. To date, 119,500 apprentices and trainees, employed by 62,600 employers, have now been assisted, and that includes 59,000 small businesses.

In terms of the actual breakdown of those statistics, we've seen 22,500 bricklayers, carpenters and joiners, 17,200 electricians and 12,200 plumbers kept on the job because of the policies the Morrison government put in place to assist these businesses in the construction industry.