The Federal Government has today unveiled a $2 billion skills and training package to expand wage subsidies for apprentices and trainees and deliver upskilling for Australian workers who lost their jobs during COVID-19.

Through the package, $1.5 billion has been committed to expanding and extending the wage subsidy currently in place for employed apprentices and trainees.

This subsidy, which was due to end at the end of September this year, has been extended by six months and will now end on 31 March 2021.

Previously only available to small businesses with fewer than 20 employees, the wage subsidy will also be expanded to include medium-sized businesses with 199 or fewer employees who employ an apprentice or trainee.

Through the apprentice and trainee wage subsidy, 50 per cent of an apprentice or trainees wage will be funded, up to $7,000 per quarter, and applies to all apprentices and trainees who were employed as of 1 July 2020.

The expanded apprentice and trainee wage subsidy is expected to support the continued employment of 180,000 apprentices and trainees, and the 90,000 small and medium businesses that employ them, as they recover from the impacts caused by the pandemic.

A further $500 million will be invested in a new “JobTrainer” package to deliver free or low-cost training programs to upskill and reskill Australian workers who lost their jobs during the pandemic.

Aimed at arming the Australian workforce and school leavers with the skills necessary to fill jobs in the post-COVID labour market, new qualifications will be offered from September, with 340,700 training places expected to be made available.

The JobTrainer package will target skills in areas of need identified by the National Skills Commission, with areas such as healthcare, transport, postal and warehousing, manufacturing, retail and wholesale trade likely to be included.

The announcement of the new JobTrainer package comes as the unemployment figures for June were also released today and have risen to 7.4 per cent.

Matching contributions for the JobTrainer package are expected to come from each state.

Source: JobTrainer skills package for economic recovery and growth
Media Release 16/07/2020