Apprentices in high demand ahead of national skills summit

"I'm the only apprentice we've got at the moment," 18-year-old apprentice electrician Tex Cassidy said from his Red Hill worksite.

"My boss is struggling to find actually anyone to come join us."

Mr Cassidy has been with Canberra company Enercorp for a year now, and is well aware of the skills shortages riddling his industry.

Electricians are among nine other professions which the federal government has projected Australia most desperately needs over the next five years.

Construction managers, civil engineering professionals, early childhood teachers, registered nurses, ICT business and systems analysts, software and applications programmers, chefs, childcare and aged and disabled carers make up the rest of that list.

Rei Edge, an enrolled nurse, retrained at the Canberra Institute of Technology after COVID disrupted her work as a beauty therapist.

Others who are mid-career and looking to retrain could be a way to patch skills shortages, she said.

"There's so many resources, there's so many ways you can get into the industry, and there's so much help out there for you to be a nurse," she said.

"That's what I was bamboozled with."

Mr Cassidy hasn't yet realised the payoffs of being qualified in a hugely in-demand role, but knows he will eventually.

"Once I do become more qualified in what I do, obviously there being a shortage, I'll be in a lot higher demand, really, so I could find work anywhere I go," he said. "Which is a good thing for me, but it's overall not the best."

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His boss, Shaun Efstratiou, agreed with that sentiment.

"There's just none available," he said, after another round of calls just last week turned up no new leads.

"It's just really hard to find people that want to work in trades ... we're finding these young guys that just don't even look at going into trades anymore."

More government incentives for training would help, he said, but he also wanted to see changes to the definition of mature-age apprentices.

A first-year apprentice under 21 has an award of $15.16 per hour, which jumps to $21.80 for those over 21.

"The age needs to be raised as well, because 21 is not mature age and some kids are just finishing school and going on a bit of a break and then deciding what they want," Mr Efstratiou said.

"Once that happens, they're nearly considered mature-age and most people are going to turn them away just because of that wage increase."

Chief Minister Andrew Barr said the upcoming skills summit would largely be about bidding for a greater share of skilled migration to states and territories - the ACT wants to see its allocation bumped up to 4030.

"It will take years to try and provide the opportunities for people who are currently in Australia, so we will need to have more international migration and then we need to have a discussion about the mix there," he said.

A shift in focus from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to more permanent migration pathways is something "we're comfortable with", Mr Barr said.

Allowing temporary visa holders to work more hours, and looking at incentives the ACT government can apply, will also play a role.

There is also "a lot of unused money" in the construction industry training fund, he said.

"So we are certainly looking at that."

However, Mr Barr said industry had work to do in assessing how they could appeal to workers.

"There would be some industry sectors where obviously apprentice wages are too low, and that's why they can't attract or retain. That's an industry-level discussion that will need to be had," he said.

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