October 31, 2025
Dr Michele Bruniges AM, Reviewer, Review of the Jobs and Skills Australia Act 2022
The Go8 consents to the publication of this submission and has no wish for any of it to be treated as confidential.
Introduction
The Go8 comprises Australia’s leading research-intensive universities which are critical contributors to the nation’s workforce, innovation, and productivity. Each year, the Go8 educates more than 120,000 high-quality graduates, including in high-demand STEM related fields such as engineering, health, mathematics, and computer science. The Go8 also graduates half of Australia’s PhDs and contributes over 20 per cent of the nation’s total R&D investment – forming a cornerstone of Australia’s knowledge economy.
Without the Go8’s high-quality graduates and associated R&D investment, Australian businesses would not have the workforce and innovation capacity that underpins economic prosperity. This would compromise Australia’s future as an advanced economy providing secure high-wage employment.
The Go8 has strongly supported the establishment and operations of Jobs and Skills Australia (JSA), advocating for universities to be consulted by JSA on workforce, skills, and training issues.
JSA plays a significant role in addressing workforce challenges, including skills shortages and long-term labour market trends. Notably, projections indicate that approximately 90 per cent of jobs over coming decades will require post-secondary education.
This review presents an important opportunity to ensure JSA’s continued effectiveness in responding to immediate workforce issues while also monitoring and advising on long-term trends. The following sections provide our feedback on the effectiveness of the operations of the JSA under the JSA Act.
Functions
Appropriateness of current functions:
JSA’s broad mandate includes advising on the labour market, education and training pathways, conducting industry and occupation capacity studies, and analysing skill demand and supply. The scope of JSA’s current functions are appropriate given the available resourcing and composition of JSA.
A key emerging focus area is tertiary harmonisation. While JSA has attempted to define this concept, interpretations vary among stakeholders. It is crucial that harmonisation should not equate to homogeneity across the tertiary education sector. The diversity within universities and vocational education institutions cater to varied student populations and employer demand.
Recognising this complexity will ensure that the Tertiary Roadmap, led by the Australian Tertiary Education Commission (ATEC), reflects the missions of education providers.
Tertiary harmonisation should be about improving productivity by creating effective education and training pathways, while recognising the value of a diverse tertiary education system.
Possible functions to change or cease to better align with the government’s priorities:
Although JSA’s remit spans the entire economy, there is a noticeable emphasis on vocational education and training (VET). Without changing its core functions, JSA’s work plan (or ATEC’s future work plan) could benefit from increased analyses of workforce issues related to higher education. This would complement JSA’s recent insightful analysis of higher education outcomes.
The attention to higher education is warranted, as JSA data shows that more than 75 per cent of total employment growth during the past year occurred in jobs typically requiring a bachelor’s degree or higher.[1] Furthermore, more than half of projected employment growth through to May 2034 is expected in occupations where a bachelor’s degree or higher as the primary qualification.[2]
Additional higher education workforce studies worth considering include:
- A higher education workforce study, similar to the 2024 VET workforce study, to inform government policy and assist universities in workforce planning to meet future demand for degree-qualified professionals.
- A capacity study of Australia’s PhD trained workforce. Both the Universities Accord and the Strategic Examination of Research & Development (SERD) underscore the value of PhD graduates for knowledge creation and innovation in Australia’s economy. However, debate continues over the optimal number of domestic PhD graduates and their employment outside academia. A JSA capacity study could project and assess long-term supply and demand, assess labour market mobility barriers, review employment outcomes, and recommend strategies to boost industry utilisation of PhD talent.
Possible additional functions, including opportunities for JSA to enhance strategic alignment with the government’s priorities and other government entities:
JSA functions must be clearly distinguished from, yet complementary to, those of the ATEC. The full scope of ATEC’s functions remain to be seen, but potential overlaps with JSA in areas such as research, data and advisory roles are likely given we know that ATEC will lead the Tertiary Roadmap with JSA involvement.
While we recognise the JSA Commissioner is assisting the interim ATEC, which assists with fostering alignment and collaboration, ensuring distinct but aligned functions and outputs between JSA and ATEC at all levels will be critical to avoid duplication and inconsistency.
This is not about creating silos between the two organisations – collaboration will be essential, but it does mean having clear governance arrangements, functions and outputs.
Effectiveness
JSA’s delivery and quality of work to meet its functions under the JSA Act:
The JSA has delivered high-quality outputs in a short timeframe. Notable examples include the Jobs and Skills Atlas, an interactive data dashboard, and the annual Jobs and Skills Report which offers valuable insights into Australia’s labour market.
To build on this early success, JSA could enhance the depth and value of its work by:
- Greater utilisation of longitudinal data in analyses. Micro level longitudinal data can provide richer and more robust analyses of labour market trends; the impact of government policies; and outcomes for different cohorts of the labour market. The JSA’s utilisation of integrated data sets, such as the Person Level Integrated Data Asset (PLIDA) provides a precedent for JSA to undertake additional longitudinal data analyses. These could include deeper analyses of regional labour markets and equity outcomes, aligning with the University Accord’s emphasis on equity and participation, including regional access to tertiary education.
- Further developing interactive analysis tools for stakeholders. For example, JSA has worked with Victoria University to produce employment projections. Given projections are by their nature based on assumptions and subject to uncertainty, the JSA could augment these projections with a scenarios tool. The value-adding would be enabling stakeholders to undertake employment projections using their own economic, demographic, and industry assumptions. An analogous scenarios tool in a different context is the Parliamentary Budget Office Build your own budget tool.
Impact and reach of JSA’s past and current work:
JSA’s work has supported and informed government initiatives including the Universities Accord and recent VET reforms. Its impact could be further strengthened by:
- Investing in helping stakeholders to understand and accurately interpret JSA products. The JSA is addressing knowledge gaps with its new reports and data, but not all stakeholders are equally familiar and adept at interpreting these outputs. The JSA needs to ensure its reports, data, and advice are not only technically sound, but correctly interpretable and well-contextualised in the public domain. JSA could consider an ‘Explainers’ series, similar to that of the Reserve Bank of Australia, to clarify key concepts and findings.
- Raising stakeholder awareness of JSA’s products. While the Jobs and Skills Atlas and annual Occupation Shortage List are well known, other products deserve greater visibility. For example:
- While the ABS continues to be the primary source of job vacancies and labour market data more generally, greater stakeholder awareness could make JSA data, such as the Internet Vacancy Index, similarly prominent. Increasing awareness of the JSA Recruitment Insights Report could also enhance its influence on recruitment planning and activity by stakeholders.
- The selection and timing of JSA capacity studies is not always clear to stakeholders; some are commissioned by the Australian Government, while others are initiated following annual work plan stakeholder consultation. Raising stakeholder awareness of how capacity study topics are selected, the timing of the studies, as well as how stakeholders can contribute to them, will enhance engagement and usage of these important in-depth studies.
- Integrating JSA data assets into broader government administration datasets. The JSA is currently aligning VET and higher education data for research and analysis purposes. This capability creates the potential to incorporate JSA’s data assets into the Australian Government’s broader data integration initiative, where privacy allows. This would broaden the awareness and use of JSA data for evidence-based policy and research.
Stakeholder model
Feedback indicates limited engagement between JSA and individual Go8 universities, whereas engagement with the Go8 Directorate is more prevalent. This suggests the current stakeholder model is not fully effective. Improvements could include:
- Revising the model to adopt a “tiered” engagement strategy, tailoring the depth of engagement to the issue’s relevance. For example, tertiary harmonisation initiatives such as recognition of prior learning and credit transfer should involve detailed consultation with individual universities, while routine dataset updates may require less engagement.
- Broadening the opportunity for experts to contribute to the development of JSA outputs. The Education and Training Advisory Group’s refined role in providing strategic input is a positive development. In the future, JSA could commission labour market experts from a wider range of universities and other education providers, research institutes, and the private sector, to contribute to its work.
Operating model
JSA’s operating model could be strengthened by:
- Including Go8 representation on the Ministerial Advisory Board (MAB) to reflect the group’s expertise and significant role in supplying highly qualified graduates – over 120,000 annually, including more than a third of all postgraduate and professional graduates.
- Embedding higher education expertise within JSA, potentially through university secondments. While staffing challenges exist (especially with ATEC also recruiting), secondments would enhance sector awareness of JSA’s functions.
- Introducing organisational performance metrics. While not currently legislatively required, we support the JSA’s initiative to finalise the development of performance metrics to improve measurement of its effectiveness. As the JSA matures, trends in these performance metrics can be highlighted and acted upon.
Conclusion
A high-quality workforce and efficient labour market are essential for Australia’s economic growth. The Go8 universities play a critical role in supplying the skilled workforce needed to meet rising demand for higher education and to drive productivity.
The continued contribution and effectiveness of the JSA in advising on workforce, skills, and training matters is essential in light of Australia’s current and emerging workforce challenges and opportunities.
The JSA has started well and can further build on the impact and effectiveness of its functions. This includes through a greater emphasis in its work program on how a differentiated tertiary education sector addresses Australia’s workforce requirements. Also, continuing its journey on using, developing, and integrating data for deeper analysis; and widening JSA engagement with stakeholders, including raising the awareness, understanding of, and value-add of its products.
[1] https://www.jobsandskills.gov.au/news/energy-and-professional-sectors-lead-australias-job-growth
[2] https://www.jobsandskills.gov.au/data/employment-projections#downloads
