Exploring Interests and Challenges of Australian Employers in VET

This report delves into the interests and challenges Australian employers encounter concerning Vocational Education and Training (VET). It highlights employers' interest in VET for acquiring employees with essential employability skills, aligning with business goals, and addressing skill gaps in both emerging and traditional sectors. A key benefit is the potential for reduced recruitment and training costs. However, the report also examines challenges such as labor fluctuations and mobility, where employers face uncertainty in retaining trained employees, along with the short productive time of apprentices. The report concludes that while challenges exist, the benefits of VET, particularly in filling skill gaps and reducing costs, outweigh the drawbacks for Australian employers.

Interests And Challenges That Australian Employers Have In The Provision Of VET1
INTERESTS AND CHALLENGES THAT AUSTRALIAN EMPLOYERS HAVE IN
THE PROVISION OF VET
By (Student’s Name)
Professor’s Name
College
Course
Date

Interests And Challenges That Australian Employers Have In The Provision Of VET2
Interests and Challenges That Australian Employers Have In the Provision of
Vocational Education and Training
Introduction
Vocational education and training, also known as VET, has been since its discovery a
major contributing factor to the Australian economy. The VET system has contributed a lot to
the economic growth of Australia through increased workforce participation. The sector has
created an opportunity for students to get into the labor market with the desirable skills based on
market demands. However, the vocation education and training have been both beneficial and
challenging to Australian employers involved in the training provision. The content of this paper,
therefore, discusses both the interests of the VET system to the employers and how it is a
challenge to the employers.
Vocational education and training provide employers with the employability skills they
need to meet their business goals. The most immediate interest of employers in the government-
funded vocational education and training is the desire to have employees with employability
skills. According to the available evidence, most employees are in need to secure employees with
critical values and work attitudes that are oriented towards the achievement of their business
goals (Wheelahan and Moodie 2017). The employers are also in need of employees whose
personal qualities and personality meet the demands of the current market. Moreover, most of
employers argue that the current Australian labor markets lack special skills needed in both
technically emerging sectors and the traditional sectors which has risen from the inability of
various employers to train and secure employees in Australia.

Interests And Challenges That Australian Employers Have In The Provision Of VET3
To this manner, employers have therefore gained interest in vocational education and
training, which is powered by the government in order to get employees with an understanding
of their demands and the needed skills. The Australian employers to this reason believe that the
only way to get employees with skills needed in the current business setting is through the VET
programmers (Eichhorst, Rodríguez-Planas, Schmidl and Zimmermann 2015). This is because
VET students go through intense training based on experience and qualification tests. For
instance, vocational trainees have tests which are based on the VET quality frameworks. The
curriculum design used in Vocational education and training in Australia is organized in a way
that most of the learning activities are based on the direct experience in workplaces. As a result,
most employers have gained interest in the VET system to acquire employees with experience
and enhanced skills, which meets their demands.
Moreover, vocational education and training are demand-oriented as per the voice of
employers. Current markets and business needs are controlled by the desire and the demand of
the customers. The vocational education and training system in Australia is designed in a way
that trainees undergo practical training for a specific skill that is concurrent with the market
demands (Simons and Harris 2014). Moreover, as a result of technological developments, the
nature of employment is currently changing, and the only way that the employers can fill the
digital and the emerging market skills is through the vocational education and training where
learners are taken through training based on the current situation and skill gaps.
Employers in Australia enjoy reduced cost of employee recruitment and training as a
result of the VET system. Another interest of employers in the vocational education and training
system in Australia is the low-cost of employee training. Notably, companies suffer from

Interests And Challenges That Australian Employers Have In The Provision Of VET4
increased operation cost, which comes with the recruitment and employment of external experts
who meet demands their and the existing gaps in markets. However, through the vocational
education and training systems, the organization are able to get apprentices and train their
employees to meet their demands. According to the apprentices and trainees data of the year
2017, approximately 77% of the employers were able to meet their task force demands through
the publicly supported vocational education and training in Australia (Venkatraman, de Souza-
Daw and Kaspi 2018). This means that such employers were able to improve their performance
at the most efficient cost. This comes based on the fact that the company would spend more
money on the recruitment of employees as the process takes a lot of effort and finance. The
employers, therefore, save money due to elimination of integration cost and employment of
employees whose skills have not been tested yet. Thus, the interest of employees in the VET
system lately can be justified based on the argument of the desire to reduce cost while improving
performance (Hodge 2014).
Conversely, in as much as employers enjoy benefits of their engagement in vocational
education and training, there are various challengers which they face from such involvements.
These include the two challenges. Labor fluctuations and mobility occurs when an employee
moves to do another thing or moves to another organization. As a result of such practices,
employees are not always sure that they will retain their apprentices after investing in their
training and education (Guenther and McRae-Williams 2015.). Even though it is not clear from
the available sources on how vocational education and training expenditure is shared among the
three entities involved: individual, the government and employers, employers invest a lot in the
education and training of apprentices. This lack of security or surety is quite challenging to the

Interests And Challenges That Australian Employers Have In The Provision Of VET5
employers as sometimes it may lead to loss of time and capital. Moreover, employers after the
involvement in the training of trainees and apprentices must also have the challenge to retain that
individual due to labor mobility (Klatt, Angelico, and Polesel 2018.). This is because some of the
apprentices after training decide to go for better offers or may even demand higher salaries. The
employers, therefore, have to increase salaries to keep theses trainees and apprentices in order to
enjoy their skills. This has been confirmed by various employees and also evidence of the
increasing wages in Australia.
Another adverse challenge to employers involved in the provision of vocational
education and training in Australia in the short period of traineeship and apprenticeships. These
employers take a lot of time and capital training and orientating trainees and apprentices.
However, after all the investment, trainees and apprentices take a very short time to work
productively for the employers (Smith, Callan, Tuck and Smith 2019). Generally, in Australia
and in other parts of the world, employers can only hold apprentices only for a period of three
years after which the individual is allowed to move to another place of choice or work for the
employer. To this manner, firm trainees and apprentices do not offer much to the employers after
all the provisions. Moreover, the time taken while working productively for employers keeps on
diminishing. Thus this is a challenge to employers based on the fact that apprentices and trainees
offer very little compared to the time and capital invested in their practical training.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it is vividly evident from the discussion that vocation education and
training is more advantageous to the involved employers compared to the challenges. Evaluation
of the benefits and challenges of VET within the content revealed that most employers

Interests And Challenges That Australian Employers Have In The Provision Of VET6
experience challenges related to trainees and apprentices’ retention as well as productivity.
Whereby employers are not sure of whether they will be able to retain trainees after training as
their employees and the time and resources involved such training less compared to the
individuals' productivity in most cases. However, the content has revealed that the involvement
of Australian employer in vocational education and training is much beneficial in relation to
filling employability skill gaps and reduced cost of employee training and recruitment. This is
because, through the VETs, Australian employed are able to get employees with employability
skills of their demand. Also, employers are able to avoid the extensive cost of recruiting and
intergrading external employees.

Interests And Challenges That Australian Employers Have In The Provision Of VET7
References
Eichhorst, W., Rodríguez-Planas, N., Schmidl, R., and Zimmermann, K.F., 2015. A road map to
vocational education and training in industrialized countries. ILR Review, 68(2), pp.314-337.
Guenther, J. and McRae-Williams, E., 2015. The training and employment challenge of remote
communities: Is collaboration the solution?. In 18th AVETRA International Conference
Proceedings: Walking the Tightrope: The implication of markets for VET research, policy and
practice. Melbourne 8-10 April.. Australian Vocational Education and Training Research
Association.
Hodge, S., 2014. Interpreting competencies in Australian vocational education and training:
Practices and issues. National Centre for Vocational Education Research.
http://UWSAU.eblib.com.au/patron/FullRecord.aspx?p=1783816).

Interests And Challenges That Australian Employers Have In The Provision Of VET8
Klatt, G., Angelico, T. and Polesel, J., 2018. Emerging partnership practices in VET provision in
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Simons, M., and Harris, R. 2014. To engage or not to engage: what can the national VET system
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Practices (pp. 303-325). Retrieved from:
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practices and concerns. International Journal of Training and Development, 23(2), pp.169-183.
Venkatraman, S., de Souza-Daw, T. and Kaspi, S., 2018. Improving employment outcomes of
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Wheelahan, L. and Moodie, G., 2017. Vocational education qualifications’ roles in pathways to
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