About

Legislation to establish Jobs and Skills Australia (JSA) was passed by Parliament on 27 October 2022 and the agency formally commenced on 16 November 2022. On 5 December 2022 Professor Peter Dawkins AO was announced as the Interim Director of JSA. 

JSA is an independent agency, responsible for providing advice to the Australian Government to underpin Australia’s response to current, emerging and future labour market and workforce skills and training needs. JSA will help the Australian Government improve employment opportunities and economic growth.

We have a strong team of diverse specialists including economists, data scientists, analysts, researchers, product developers and designers, and project managers working with stakeholders to provide expert advice.

On 23 March 2023, the Australian Government introduced into Parliament the Jobs and Skills Australia Amendment Bill 2023. The Bill will establish JSA in its final form. The Bill can be found on the Parliament of Australia website.

JSA will play an important role in helping to strengthen Australia’s economy. We will deliver this by leading research and analysis, harnessing insights from industry, undertaking workforce forecasting and preparing capacity studies for emerging and growing industries.

This will provide a greater understanding of current, emerging and future Australian workforce skills needs to inform Australia’s skills system policy and program settings.

Providing advice on Australia’s labour market, including advice on workforce needs and priorities and current, emerging and future skills and training needs and priorities (including in relation to apprenticeships) will be a priority for JSA. This will include assessment of issues relating to skills and training, and workforce needs, in regional, rural and remote Australia.

Our role will include undertaking workforce forecasting, assessing workforce skills requirements and undertaking cross industry workforce analysis. We will also prepare capacity studies, including for emerging and growing industries and occupations.

Our research and analysis will consider the adequacy of Australia’s system of providing Vocational Education and Training (VET). We will also consider resourcing and funding requirements for registered training organisations to deliver accessible quality VET courses which will assist students and learners and better support government investment decisions in the sector.

We will have a focus on opportunities to improve employment, VET and higher education outcomes for cohorts of individuals that have historically experienced labour market disadvantage and exclusion. Considering opportunities to remove barriers to achieving gender equality in the provision of training and in the labour market will be at the centre of this. 

Further detail on the functions of JSA can be found in the Jobs and Skills Australia Act 2022, available here.