According to Chris Walton, the release of the Senate Education, Employment and Workplace Relations References Committee’s Report on the engineering skills crisis is an opportunity for Australia’s political parties to take action on this growing problem.

By Chris Walton, CEO, Association of Professional Engineers, Scientists and Managers, Australia (APESMA)

Australia is in a pretty unique economic position right now. Accordingly, we have the luxury of addressing the medium-term issues facing our nation, rather than getting bogged down by the recessions affecting much of the rest of the world.

The key question for the Federal Government – and the Opposition – is: what problem they are going to tackle as their highest priority?

Thankfully a cross-party committee of senators had a good look at the impacts of the crisis of engineering skills and presented their report to the Government, giving them everything they could need to put this on the top of their agenda.

The report found that Australia is suffering from a chronic lack of engineers that is holding back our economy and puts a financial burden on every Australian taxpayer.

It is precisely the sort of thing that an innovative economy like Australia needs to address quickly to ensure we take advantage of the current positive economic conditions and continue to protect ourselves from global economic uncertainty for decades to come.


The report contained compelling and stunning facts. For example, Skills Australia advised the Government that Australia will need at least 37,000 more engineers before 2016. That’s right, in less than four years.

Embarrassingly, it also found that governments often no longer have the technical capability to design, build, manage and maintain economic and community infrastructure, such as roads, railways, electricity and water networks.

The report also detailed the ways in which Australia will be held back from such a lack of engineers. 

It might be obvious to many engineers, but the committee’s report publicly admitted that taxpayers will have to pay more to deliver vital infrastructure projects, that more bottlenecks will occur and that job growth will be hampered.

The report also stated that local governments are particularly under pressure, because they often have little ability to match the rapidly increasing wages on offer in the mining and resources sector.

APESMA has been at the forefront of these issues, but until now Australian governments have simply failed to adequately address a problem that’s been endemic for decades.

What can be done?

We are working with other groups, such as the IPWEA, to fix the shortage and get sensible solutions that will help both industry and all levels of government.

We all know that if you let a problem fester for too long, you will need to take drastic action to fix it. We have argued that Australia will now need to fight the engineering skills shortage on all fronts: by encouraging our kids to enrol in engineering degrees, by helping students graduate with an engineering qualification, by giving younger engineers greater skills, by retaining our best engineers, and by bringing in some engineers from overseas to help plug the gaps.

It’s a problem that’s now deeply ingrained from primary school to retirement.

Of course, while the shortage of engineers can be patchy in different states, industries and specialisations, there is no doubt Australia is in the grip of a general engineering skills crisis that has a significant effect on Australia’s renowned way of life.

The Senate committee’s report recommends a range of actions proposed by APESMA, which includes better procurement processes to drive graduate and cadetship programs and encouraging more women to the profession. 

However, APESMA believes the government should go much further to create an Office of the Chief Engineer, create a new workforce development council to advise on education and training needs and industry demand, and the incentives should be provided to the private sector to better train Australian engineers.

We know that many of these solutions will cost a little in the short term, but will more than pay for themselves in the years ahead.

That’s why we are calling on the major political parties to show strong leadership and finally address the engineering skills shortage in a comprehensive way.

Because, while the way forward is obvious to APESMA, Australian engineers and the Senate, the time for talking has finished. It’s now time to invest ourselves into a better future for all Australians.

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