Industry insights on skills needs
The Forest and Wood Products IRC’s 2019 Skills Forecast identified the following generic skills as top priority for the industry:
- Technology
- Environmental sustainability
- Language, Literacy and Numeracy (LLN) (Foundation skills)
- Design mindset / Thinking critically / System thinking / Solving problems
- Communication / Virtual collaboration / Social intelligence.
A range of top priority industry and occupation skills were identified, including:
- Information and communication technology skills
- Middle management skills
- High level financial skills
- Specialised skills.
The above Skills Forecast details a variety of challenges and opportunities faced by the industry as a whole, including the following related to the Timber Processing and Products sector:
- Domestic market – Investment in the softwood processing sector may be limited by uncertainties surrounding the future supply of forest resources, and if the log supply to emerging economies, such as China, continues, the amount of sawlog supply for domestic wood processors will diminish. Reducing log supply as a result of native forests being transitioned to forest reserves increasingly challenges the hardwood sawmilling and upstream hardwood manufacturing sectors.
- Products with emerging markets – Growth in the demand for solid engineered wood products such as cross laminated timber (CLT), Glulam and bioenergy products like biogas and wood pellets highlight opportunities for investment, innovation and entrepreneurship within the sector. Concerns around the availability of future log supply and impacts on local markets have been raised with regards to the growth of solid engineered wood products, while policy development is needed to enable wood residue from existing wood processing operations to be available to the energy sector and biochemical production.
- Timber knowledge and expectations in the retail sector – The continual growth and expansion of timber and timber related products requires merchandising staff to maintain current product knowledge over a range of platforms. Further, customer behaviour and expectations have highlighted the need to increase the speed of service delivery while also transitioning to digital customer service capabilities and upskill in digital marketing across timber retailing and the supply chain.
- Digitisation – Forestry and wood product companies have fallen behind many other industries in taking advantage of digital technologies. Strong leadership and the development of digital skills and capabilities within organisations are required to evolve existing operations into new business models.
The Forest and Wood Products IRC's 2020 Skills Forecast highlights key issues affecting the sector:
- Climate change is driving a push for less carbon intensive construction methods
- Bushfires and the increased risk of bushfires
- Ensuring workplaces are as safe as possible
- The ongoing challenge of accessing training in thin, regionally dispersed, markets
- Employers throughout the country continue to be concerned about the need for career pathways into and within the industry.
The impact of the 2019–20 bushfire season on native and plantation timbers was far greater than anticipated and will have a significant impact on the industry now and into the future, particularly in New South Wales, Victoria and on Kangaroo Island in South Australia. Maximising salvage operations was a priority in the immediate aftermath of the fires and sawmills put on extra shifts to process salvaged wood.
The use of robotics is increasing for materials handling, processing and surfacing. Investments in research and technology show the pipeline of future skills needs. The acquisition of these skills across the workforce has begun and will gradually transform the way work is performed in the sector.
According to the Forest and Wood Products IRC's 2021 Skills Forecast, the advancement in technology in the sawmilling, wood processing and engineered wood products sector is often operationalised by the introduction of extremely large pieces of equipment such as saws, computer numerical control (CNC) equipment and other machinery and manufacturing systems. Training for this machinery is normally provided by the equipment supplier, often an overseas based worldwide company, by trainers who will fly in to provide training, or via virtual modes.
Employers require Saw Technicians (Saw Doctors) and Wood Machinists to obtain qualifications for both of these trades. The impact of thin training markets is demonstrated here through there being only one RTO delivering the Wood Machinist qualification and two registered training organisation (RTOs) delivering the Saw Technician qualification. Due to the small number of students undertaking these qualifications, RTOs utilise block release training. Students fly from all states to undertake the training. Saw Technicians are few in number but critical to the operation of the industry. There may be only one or two in a sawmill of 50 staff, but they ensure that sawmilling machinery is running efficiently, effectively and with exact precision. Without a Saw Technician, these sawmills would not be able to produce the 4.0 million cubic metres of sawn timber they do each year, the majority of which is used in the domestic housing market.
The sawmilling, timber processing and timber products sectors are undergoing rapid digital transformation and technological advancement. The skills required of operators are changing. They need the skills to work with new technologies and produce innovative products such as cross laminated timber (CLT) and glue laminated timber (GLT). The demand for skills to monitor, maintain, optimise and troubleshoot highly specialised automated equipment that moves, grades, assesses, scans, cuts and assembles timber pieces and products is surpassing the need for operators to pass, move, lift, grade, assess, stack, and sort timber and wood products. The proposed Sawmilling and Timber Processing project will review current qualifications and skills standards to incorporate current skills requirements and to consolidate the number of qualifications and units, to reduce complexity in the training system.
Consultation with businesses in the sector have identified a need for skills in the following areas:
- Automated wood processing technology
- Use of program logic control systems and constant flow technology in wood processing operations
- Maximising yield in wood processing operations
- Chain of responsibility requirements for wood processing operators
- Incorporation of mobile plant and licensing requirements into qualifications.
The report of the National Joinery Industry Survey found that around 34% cent of respondents reported skills shortage as a concern and challenge now and in the future. The issues that are effecting skill shortages within the joinery industry include an ageing workforce, differences in demand and/or supply of skilled workers as a result of employment arrangements, inadequate apprenticeship rates and difficulties in attracting and retaining employees. These factors will impact the industry and it will need to act to make training more attractive for younger people and to assist business owners to provide adequate areas of growth and training to employees within their business to help retain them as workers. The survey results also indicated a need for a focus on promoting the industry further to a younger generation of women, with those under the age of 30 making up only 14% of the women in the industry.
The Victorian timber frame and truss sector snapshot reveals that employers seek entry level workers who are reliable, committed, hardworking, physically fit and will attend shifts on time. While employers primarily seek employees with the right personal attributes, they also value staff with previous experience using nail guns, tape measures and hammers. Other in-demand skill sets include digital skills, such as dealing with cloud-based systems, use of computer-assisted design (CAD) and interpreting digital drawings. As businesses grow, many manufacturers begin building wall frames as well as roof trusses. This is a less common source of work for the industry, therefore employers can find it difficult to source experienced people for these positions.
Employers also noted gaps in general skills for more senior employees such as leading hands and supervisors. Employees working in more senior roles may oversee logistics which involves communicating with clients, planning and delivering products on time. In managerial roles, employees need skills such as people management, planning and budgeting. Employers report difficulty in finding people for these roles from within their companies and are forced to search externally, whereas many external applicants may not have the requisite sectoral knowledge or experience to succeed in the role. Employers would prefer workers from the factory floor to grow organically into these roles, but this requires recruitment of entry-level labour with these skills or the capacity to develop them. The most significant skills shortages faced by employers are in design and estimation. Estimators are often outsourced from countries like Malaysia to meet this skills gap, but design roles cannot feasibly be outsourced and employers face challenges recruiting to these roles.
