Australia is importing skills it desperately needs, then wasting them

Almost half of Australia’s permanent migrants (44%) are working below the level of their skills or qualifications. That is more than 620,000 people.

We are not simply failing to attract enough talent. We are failing to use the talent we have already attracted.

Among them are engineers and technical specialists, precisely the people Australia needs to deliver the energy transition, critical infrastructure and the technologies that will shape our future.

Research published by Engineers Australia late last year found that better harnessing Australia’s migrant engineering talent in 80,000 engineering roles in key sectors like manufacturing, renewables, construction and mining could lift GDP by $2.56 billion by 2030.  

Of Australia’s 266,000 overseas born engineers, half are not in engineering roles. This compares with two thirds of Australian-born engineers working in engineering roles. 

And as technology transforms the agriculture and food sector over coming decades, the lack of adequately skilled labour in agricultural technologies is expected to become an even more critical constraint than it is at present, putting Australia’s food security and economic stability at risk.

Australia should absolutely be doing more to train its own workforce. Investments in STEM education and programs such as ATSE’s Elevate scholarships are essential to building the skills we will need over the long term.

A skilled migration strategy must go hand in hand with growing Australia’s own domestic skills capacity. But we cannot train enough specialists quickly enough to fill every critical gap.

That means skilled migration must be treated as a nation-building strategy, not simply as a short-term response to labour shortages.

Unfortunately, our system remains too focused on the skills Australia needs today, rather than those we will need tomorrow. Australia needs a much longer view.

The Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering is calling for a 40-year skilled migration roadmap, linked to the National Skills Taxonomy, to identify the capabilities Australia will need as technology, geopolitics and the economy change.

That may sound ambitious. It is also common sense.

We would never build a major power system by asking what electricity we need this year. Yet that is remarkably close to how we approach the workforce needed to build it.

Once skilled migrants arrive, we need to make sure Australia can use their expertise.

As highlighted by Engineers Australia, qualification recognition, local experience requirements and other barriers can leave engineers working outside their profession while Australian employers struggle to find the very skills they need. This is an absurdity we can fix.

A coordinated effort between governments, industry, universities and professional bodies could unlock this underused workforce, including through faster and more robust assessment of international qualifications.

Skilled migration is not a substitute for developing Australian talent. Nor should it be. But neither should we pretend Australia can build its future with domestic training alone in the timeframe that we need.

The global competition for talent is intensifying. Australia needs to compete and it needs to think much further ahead.

An opinion piece by Dr Cathy Foley AO FTSE FAA PSM, President of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering.