The claim
Apprenticeships help skill up the workforce and can unlock a lifetime of job opportunities for those lucky enough to secure one.
Both major parties are promising to boost apprenticeships, amid claims by Opposition Leader Bill Shorten that the Coalition Government is to blame for creating a “crisis in trades training”.
“They have a shocking record on vocational education,” he told reporters recently, before claiming the number of apprenticeships in Australia has fallen.
“It was 420,000 before the Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison government. Now it’s south of 280,000 and declining.”
Shorten said he wanted to return Australia to being a “tradie nation”.
“What I need to do is remedy the crisis in trades training which the Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison governments have created in Australian apprenticeships,” he said.
So, has the number of apprenticeships slumped since the Coalition took office in 2013?
And if so, can blame be laid at the feet of the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison administrations?
RMIT ABC Fact Check investigates.
The verdict
Shorten’s claim is misleading.
Apprenticeships have long been associated with traditional trades, such as plumbing.
But traineeships are a newer type of training program and are typically associated with the services sector, retail being one example.
The latest official data shows the number of apprenticeships (broadly classified as trades) has been in decline since mid-2012, but there has been a much more dramatic decline in traineeships (broadly classified as non-trades).
Shorten used the term “apprenticeships” when speaking to reporters, but he was, in fact, referring to combined figures for apprenticeships and traineeships.
September quarter figures show there were 485,440 people in training for apprenticeships and traineeships in 2012 — higher than Shorten’s figure of 420,000.
By September 2018 this had fallen to 267,385, a drop of 45%.
When the numbers are separated, it’s clear the sharp overall decline is driven by the fall in traineeships, which slumped by 66%, compared to apprenticeships, which fell by 18%.
Conflating the numbers may not seem unreasonable since the Government’s own website states that “apprenticeships” are “often referred to as apprenticeships and traineeships”.
However, Fact Check deems Shorten’s claim to be misleading as his comments were made within the context of traditional trades; he referred to there being a “crisis in trades training” and expressed his wish to return Australia to being a “tradie nation”.
Further, policy changes actually introduced by the Gillard government in 2012 aimed at addressing widespread rorting of incentive payments to employers led to the sharp decline in traineeships, which became apparent from 2013, the year the Coalition came to power.
The more moderate drop in apprenticeship numbers was largely in response to labour market changes and the decline in traditional trade industries, such as automotive manufacturing and mining, according to experts consulted by Fact Check.
Getting the definitions right
Apprenticeships are programs mostly associated with traditional trades that train people to become, for example, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, printers, hairdressers and mechanics.
They combine employment and formal training and have been well recognised since the post-war period.
Traineeships also involve employment and formal training, but were established in 1985 to provide opportunities in the non-trade or services sector, typically in retail, hospitality, administration, childcare and aged care.
Getting the numbers right
Data produced by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) does not distinguish between apprenticeships and traineeships.
But it does divide data into trade and non-trade sectors, which broadly align with apprenticeships and traineeships respectively.
This data is produced quarterly and consolidated annually.
Apprenticeships and traineeships are measured as commencements, completions and in-training.
When asked for the source of his numbers, Shorten’s office referred to the official September quarter figures for people in training in 2012 and 2018.
The NCVER collated September quarter “in-training” figures for Fact Check from 2009 to 2018 (the latest available).
These show an overall drop of 45% from 2012 to 2018, with the decline mostly driven by a slump in traineeships (down 66%), ahead of a fall in apprenticeships (down 18%).
As the chart below shows, the numbers of people in training for both apprenticeships and traineeships peaked in 2012.
Since then, apprenticeship numbers have remained relatively stable, while traineeships have fallen sharply.
In his comments to reporters, Shorten provided combined numbers for apprenticeships and traineeships yet referred only to “apprenticeships”, creating a misleading picture about a crisis in the traditional trade-based apprenticeship system.
However, Professor Peter Noonan, an expert in vocational education at Victoria University, and colleague Sarah Pilcher, say there is, in fact, no crisis in trades training.
In an article published by The Conversation in 2017, they argued that not only was it misleading to present figures in this way, but that many parties on both sides of the political divide, including industry groups and trade unions, had done so at various times to suggest there was a crisis in Australia’s apprenticeship system.
The academics argued that while apprenticeship numbers had fallen, a closer examination revealed that, in some industries, apprenticeships had experienced recent growth, while for others there had been a decline.
Read the rest of this Fact Check over at the ABC
Principal researcher: Sushi Das, chief of staff
Sources
Bill Shorten, transcript of Melbourne doorstop, March 27, 2017
Geoff Gilfillan, ‘Trends in apprenticeships and traineeships’, Parliamentary Library, 2016
Peter Noonan and Sarah Pilcher, ‘Finding the truth in the apprenticeships debate’, Mitchell Report no. 03/2017, August 2017
Expert review of Australia‘s vocational educational and training system, 2019
Senator Michaelia Cash press release, April 2, 2019
Australian Government apprenticeships website
Commonwealth Department of Education and Training website
So I got my tertiary vocational education in the 1960’s by way of what was called a traineeship. This involved being paid to do a full-time university degree, including and followed by work in a professional field, then examinations run by a board of a professional body.
This was how engineers and lawyers, for example, got their training.
I didn’t see this come up in the article. It’s a lot of people who didn’t get counted. Just sayin’.
Bill Shorten’s observation of an 18% decline in apprenticeships is ‘misleading’? Really?????
Obviously none of this lot have tried to get an affordable tradie over the last few years…we certainly need more electricians and plumbers, for a start!!
So…. apprenticeships even in the trades HAVE fallen under the Coalition, but this still gets a “Misleading”?
Shouldn’t this fact check be going after the parties’ headline claims, such as the Coalition claims used in every ad, pamphlet and press release claiming Labor have a “Retiree Tax”, a “Family Tax” etc which are all pants-on-fire BS, rather than going hunting for claims which are basically true but which you can find some definitional quibbles with in the numbers?
Agreed Arky – the general thrust of Shorten’s claims are true enough, and we all know what the LNP have done to TAFE, vocational training, and jobseeker assistance – yet fact check attempts to equate Labour’s “misleading” with the LNP’s stream of pure bullshit.
I think there are pre employment traineeships in years 11 and 12 for apprenticeships. So Bill’s right.
I agree with the other comments here. This is nit-picking in the extreme. But that even misses the point and so has Bill Shorten. The crisis in training is two fold:
1. The appalling performance of private training organisations and the chronic under-finding of TAFE, which I recognise is partly a state issue.
2. The fragmentation of training into meaningless ‘modules’ that teach nobody useful trade craft or any holistic knowledge of the trade or activity. Only TAFE does that and its ‘market share’ has been minimised by allowing shonks to pretend they are delivering useful training.
TAFE does it and industry won’t pay for it. Big supermarkets don’t need bakers and pastrycooks, but they do need people with enough food prep and WHS training to measure out pre-mix into machines without injuring themselves or giving the public typhoid. You employ a real pastrycook at a supermarket bakery and they’d incite a mutiny. Can’t have that, as they might demand better pay and conditions. And this applies across sectors and all kinds of trade roles. How do you solve it? Probably by having a hybrid economic system of public and private ownership of infrastructure and services. Telecom, water boards, power boards and all the rest supplied loads of partly and fully qualified tradespeople into the economy, but that ended with privatisation.