Industry insights on skills needs
According to the Food, Beverage and Pharmaceutical IRC’s Industry Sector Annual Update 2021: Skills Forecast, workers will need different skills for future jobs in food and agribusiness. Some key areas needing to be addressed to enable workforce development include rebranding the sector to attract new talent, building closer links with educational institutions, radically scaling on-the-job training, and developing flexible employment models for older workers.
Results from FIAL research suggest there is projected to be strong growth in demand for people with technical, managerial and numeracy skills. Manual labourers, such as farmhands, and administrative workers are expected to require the largest change in skills to do their jobs in 2025.
Both the Food, Beverage and Pharmaceutical IRC’s 2019-2022 Skills Forecast and the Meat IRC’s 2019-2022 Skills Forecast highlight the impact consumer and industry trends are having on their respective sectors. Across all sectors, consumer demand and expectations are growing with regards to healthier products, product traceability, ethical production practices, impacts of climate variability and minimising carbon footprints, and food safety.
Further complementing these trends, the 2017 CSIRO Futures Report for Food and Agribusiness summarises the five megatrends that are affecting the Food and Agribusiness industry globally:
- A less predictable planet
- Health on the mind
- Choosy customers
- One world
- Smarter food chains.
The report finds that in addition to deep technical knowledge, skills are required in understanding supply chains, relationship management and digital platforms. Both structured on-the-job training and tertiary education play a role in obtaining these skills.
In addition, technological advancements have been highlighted in both Skills Forecasts as prompting the need for new skills from workers, as well as initiating qualification reviews and the potential development of new skill sets.
According to Medicine Australia’s report Growing Australia's Innovative Medicines Industry Through Investment, opportunities exist for Australia to grow its share of the pharmaceutical trade with global demand for medicines forecast to increase at 3-6% compound annual growth rates to 2023. Making the most of this opportunity will help to drive economic growth, deliver more high-skill jobs, and provide Australians with improved access to medicines.
According to a government media release, South Australia has recognised this opportunity and is set to be home of a new high-tech pharmaceutical manufacturing facility. Noumed Pharmaceuticals, a major global supplier of prescription and over-the-counter medicines and therapeutics, currently manufactures all of the products it supplies to the Australian market offshore but will become almost entirely self-sufficient when the new $85 million manufacturing facility opens in Adelaide by 2025. The project is expected to create up to 250 jobs during the construction phase and a further 180 ongoing positions once operational in 2025.
