Here’s Your TL;DR On The Govt’s $2B JobTrainer Program & How It *Could* Help You Find Work

We’ve all heard of JobKeeper and JobSeeker, but now there’s JobTrainer. That’s the government’s catchy new name for a sort-of-$2-billion package designed to get young people into vocational training and apprenticeships.

The package includes $500 million from the federal government (to be matched by the states) for free and heavily-subsidised TAFE courses. Meanwhile, another $1.5 billion will go towards subsidising apprenticeships.

The government hasn’t said what kinds of courses and skills it’ll be pushing, but it’s set to be the kind of thing preparing job seekers (especially if you’ve just finished school) for those post-pandemic jobs of the future we keep hearing about.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison put it like this: “JobTrainer will ensure more Australians have the chance to reskill or upskill to fill the jobs on the other side of this crisis.”

Let’s break down what we know so far, and what it actually means for you.

What kinds of courses will be on offer?

The National Skills Commission is supposed to identity what skills are in demand in consultation with the state and territory governments, but nothing’s certain just yet.

What we do know is that the courses will likely be offered at TAFE and possibly some private colleges, too.

There’ll likely be a focus on health, social assistance, transport, warehousing, postal services, retail and manufacturing, as these are the fields which are set to blow up after the pandemic.

How cheap will it be?

Short courses are expected to be completely free of charge.

However longer courses, like Cert III or IV qualifications, will be subsidised by the JobTrainer package rather than being totally free.

Either way, expect training for certain fields to get a whole lot more affordable.

How many spots will there be?

More than half of the funding is expected to be shared by NSW and Victoria alone. That equates to around 108,000 and 89,000 training positions, respectively.

The number of spots made available more or less matches population size by state.

Queensland is expected to get around 68,000 spots, with around 35,000 for Western Australia, 23,000 for South Australia, 7,000 for Tassie, 6,000 for the ACT and round 3,000 in the Northern Territory.

What about apprenticeships?

In addition to JobTrainer, the government is spending another $1.5 billion to essentially subsidise apprenticeships. The funding will cover half of an apprentice or trainee’s wage, up to $7,000 per quarter.

It builds upon the $1.2 billion announced in March to help fund apprenticeships, bringing it to a total of $2.7 billion.

At the moment, around 47,000 business are taking advantage of the program. With the boosted funding, the number is expected to jump to around 91,000.


Still wondering about anything? Shoot us your questions at zac.crellin@pedestriangroup.com.au and we’ll try and sort out some answers.

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