HABA invited to be founding member of ‘Workforce Equipped’ Jobs and Skills Council

Home / HABA Blog / HABA invited to be founding member of ‘Workforce Equipped’ Jobs and Skills Council

Posted March 30, 2023

Hair and Beauty Australia is pleased to announce the appointment of the initial board members of  ‘Workforce Equipped’ Jobs and Skills Council to respond to current and emerging skills needs in the services sector

Hair and Beauty Australia (“HABA”), the industry peak body for the personal services industry welcomes the announcement of the initial election of directors at Workforce Equipped. This important first step creates the operating base of the ‘Industry Clusters – Strengthening Australia’s National Vocational Education and Training System Program’. This follows the successful Stage 1 grant application.

HABA has always played a key role in providing an industry voice to the VET and Education sector and as such was invited to be a founding member of Workforce Equipped and the application team. This new Jobs and Skills Council will focus on responding to the current and emerging skills needs and workforce challenges of related industries – Retail and Wholesale, Online Sales and Fulfilment, Personal Services, Arts, Tourism, Travel and Hospitality.

Working closely with the industry lead the ARA, HABA was an intricate member of successful application for the new entity which will be tri-partite, not-for-profit, with several Employee and Employer organisations, including HABA, as foundation voting members.

HABA welcomes the following to Workforce Equipped;

• Dr Gary Mortimer – Professor in Marketing and Consumer Behaviour at the QUT Business School
• Krista Diez-Simson – CFO/COO at Taking Shape
• Gerard Dwyer – National Secretary-Treasurer of the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees’ Association

The program is being administered by the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations with the funding intended to provide the new Jobs and Skills Council with a stronger, more strategic voice and broader role in ensuring Australia’s VET system continues to deliver on employer and learner needs.

About Industry Clusters:

• The Australian Government has committed to delivering a collaborative, tripartite VET sector that brings employers, unions and governments together to find solutions to skills and workforce challenges.
• Jobs and Skills Councils are being established to provide industry with a stronger, more strategic voice in ensuring Australia’s VET sector delivers stronger outcomes for learners and employers.
• As a national network of industry-owned and industry-led organisations, Jobs and Skills Councils will provide strategic leadership in addressing skills and workforce challenges, aligning effort across industries to improve system responsiveness, build stakeholder confidence and drive high-quality outcomes for the VET sector, learners and business.
• Jobs and Skills Councils will identify skills and workforce needs for their sectors, map career pathways across education sectors, develop contemporary VET training products, support collaboration between industry and training providers to improve training and assessment practice and act as a source of intelligence on issues affecting their industries.
• Jobs and Skills Councils will work closely with Jobs and Skills Australia (JSA), drawing on JSA’s workforce analysis and projections to undertake planning for their industry sectors, creating a uniform understanding of the skills landscape and how skill gaps can be addressed.
• If you are interested in engaging with the Jobs and Skills Councils once they have established, you can register your details on the DEWR Industry Engagement Reforms Homepage. You will also find a more detailed factsheet on each of the Jobs and Skills Councils, including their sector coverage and training package on this site.

If you want to know more, make sure you #askhaba – 02 9211 9911