The Morrison Government has delivered record levels of trainees and trade apprenticeships across Central Tasmania on record as trade apprentices continue to surge to record high levels across the country – reaching 220,000 in training in 2021.

New department program data demonstrates trainees and trade apprenticeships hit over 1636 in Lyons in September 2021, the highest number on record and an increase of 73 per cent since Labor left office.

Minister for Employment, Workforce, Skills, Small and Family Business Stuart Robert said the milestone cemented the Morrison Government as the best friend tradies across Tasmania have ever had.

‘Whether is up in Perth or down in Sorell—Tasmania is in the midst of an apprenticeships boom, there has never been as many Australians having a crack at a skill or a trade apprenticeship than today right here,’

‘Our record funding of $13 billion in skills and training funding through the pandemic has secured a generation of local Australian apprentices through the greatest shock since the Great Depression.’

‘With the economy firing again, hundreds of thousands of jobs available and billions of dollars of skills funding on the table this is a once in a generation opportunity for Aussies to get into a career that will last a lifetime.’

Liberal Senator for Tasmania, Claire Chandler said upskilling young people was creating local employment opportunities and boosting economic activity.

‘Tasmanians are getting ahead under the Morrison Government with more locals getting a skill or learning a trade than ever before, right here in Tasmania,’ Senator Chandler said.

‘The facts speak for themselves: under Labor the national youth unemployment rate was 12.7 per cent – it’s 9.0 per cent today. Today Tasmania has an unemployment rate of 3.8 per cent which is lower than the national average, but when Labor was last in office it hit 8.2 per cent.’

Evidencing the positive impacts of the Morrison Government’s record funding of skills and training the number of Australians undertaking skills and training has surged with total in-training apprenticeships and traineeships for September 2021 at 355,488 up from 264,585 in September 2020.

Apprenticeship commencements have risen significantly across all states and territories since the Morrison Government’s $3.9 billion Boosting Apprenticeship Commencements wage support was introduced in October 2020 which has recently been backed in by the $716 million Completing Apprenticeships Commencements wage support.

The current surge in apprenticeships contrasts with the experience of the final year of the former Labor Government, which according to official NCVER data saw the number of apprentices and trainees in-training collapse by 22 per cent, or 111,300 from June 2012 to June 2013. This was as a direct result of policy changes introduced by the Gillard Labor Government in 2012 aimed at addressing widespread rorting of incentive payments to employers, which led to the sharp decline in traineeships witnessed from 2013.

Lyons lost one in four apprentices and trainees in Labor’s final year in office when in-training figures fell by 25 per cent (Jun 12 – Jun 13).