Work Transitioning to New Employment Opportunities

This project will provide 40 unemployed and underemployed people with the skills to enter, re-enter or increase their participation in the workforce in areas of demonstrated skills demand in the Business Services Sector.

The project will target people, metropolitan and regional, from the following disadvantaged demographics:

• Women and carers looking to enter, return to the workforce or increase their participation in the workforce;
• Unemployed and underemployed people:
  • in the regions (Riverland),
  • within business sectors, and
  • leaving business sectors, such as finance and ICT.

The Business Services Industry Skills Board SA Inc. (BSISB) has identified three strong areas of skills demand within its domain sectors.

1. As a result of a state-wide survey of private Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) within SA, undertaken in September of 2008, there is indicated a current requirement for around 250 trainers and assessors. The strongest demand is for trainers skilled in business services, finance and information technology. The opportunity presents to up skill people from the financial services sector with the Certificate IV in Training and Assessment to meet this demand.

2. A new legislative requirement provides as of February 2009 for Registered BAS Service Providers, that is people completing and submitting BAS statements to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) for businesses, to have commenced either a Certificate IV in Financial Services (Bookkeeping) or (Accounting) and have completed the qualification by February 2012 to enable them to be an ATO “Registered BAS Service Provider”. The new legislation will come into effect from 1 July 2009.

3. The requirement for persons who are wanting to register as BAS Service Providers with the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) to have completed the Certificate IV in Financial Services (Bookkeeping) or (Accounting) will also increase the demand for qualified trainers and assessors to deliver these qualifications, particularly in regional areas where there are numbers of small and micro businesses and self employed contractors relying on contracted bookkeeping services.

4. Trainers for new and emerging skills – The demand for green or environmentally responsible industry approaches will bring further pressures on how to train the workforce. Where industry is breaking new ground with ‘world’s best and world’s first’ practice in relation to climate change responses there will not be trainers. This is compounded by the overall shortage of trainers.

To meet both the requirements for knowledge of “green practices” and the growing demand for persons to teach in “green units”, participants in the training will undertake the three business units on sustainable work practices.

This project will work collaboratively with the Regional Development Boards (RDBs) and SA Works in the Regions network established under the Reframing The Future project to pilot the training with a regional group.

An industry funded career pathway resource will be developed and this resource and the set of models and processes will be able to be rolled out and applied by the RDBs and Employment Skills Formation Networks (ESFNs) state-wide.

This project will apply the learning from the recently completed Mature Worker Transition Project particularly as it applies to the recruitment, Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL), learner case management and RTO engagement models to support the training of 40 people.