08 SepOutcomes from the Jobs and Skills Summit
The Jobs and Skills Summit was held last week on the 1st and 2nd of September.
Unfortunately, the Summit outcomes did not address as many issues as we had hoped for. However, ELAA will continue to advocate for our members on topics such as workforce shortages and hope to see more changes implemented in the future to complement existing government commitments to the ECEC sector, such as increases to the Child Care Subsidy rates from July 2023, a Productivity Commission review of the education and care sector and an Australian Competition and Consumer Commission inquiry into sector prices.
For the full list of outcomes from the Jobs and Skills Summit, please CLICK HERE .
Outcomes that may interest our members include:
- updating the Fair Work Act to create a simple, flexible, and fair new framework that ensures workers and businesses have flexible options for reaching agreements, including removing unnecessary limitations on access to single and multi-employer agreements
- a collaboration between all governments to support better outcomes in the ECEC sector, particularly noting the current workforce shortage
- plans for a detailed consultation and research process to consider how the impact of workplace relations settings, such as rostering arrangements, affect childcare
- a ten-year partnership with the philanthropic sector and government to find opportunities for improving early childhood development and education
- including gender pay equity and job security in the objectives of the Fair Work Act and establish two new expert panels in the Fair Work Commission for pay equity in the care and community sector.
These outcomes are not yet concrete, and no action date has been released. However, the Australian Department of Employment and Workplace Relations will commence detailed consultations in the following weeks, and we look forward to updating our members once implementation dates have been decided.
