To help stimulate the economy as it recovers from COVID-19, the Federal Government has announced a $2 billion JobTrainer Program. The JobTrainer skills package is for people needing to retrain or gain new skills in new sectors. The package will also be used to subsidise apprenticeship wages to ensure thousands of jobs are protected and their training continues.
The JobTrainer program is also aimed at school leavers and job seekers by allocating funds for additional training facilities. Beginning September, these training places will offer short and long term courses which will either be free or low cost. Details are not available yet.
Apprentice wage subsidies that were available to small businesses, will now also be available to medium-size businesses (less than 200 employees). Businesses will be able to claim 50% of the wages of apprentices and trainees, up to $7,000 per quarter.
The Federal Government will work with the State and Territories to identify the skills and qualifications required by job seekers to enter the job market. The States and Territories will be required to sign up to a new agreement to access the funds, and also match the contributions from the Federal Government for the $500 million directed to the newly added courses.
Health care, transport, retail trade, wholesale trade, manufacturing, postal and warehousing have been identified as growing sectors in need of a boost by the National Skills Commission, but each State/Territory may vary slightly.
We will keep you up to date once the Western Australian Government announces their plans for our state.