Jobs and Skills Australia is undertaking a capacity study on the workforce needs of Australia’s food supply chain. Draft Terms of Reference for the study have been developed and Jobs and Skills Australia is inviting stakeholder feedback on these between 10am (AEDT) 21 February 2024 and 10am (AEDT) 6 March 2024.
Australia has an extensive food supply chain that is truly ‘end to end’: from pre-production activities like fertiliser manufacturing all the way to food services and retail. This is an extensive supply chain that employs hundreds of thousands of Australians and provides high quality food worldwide.
The Food Supply Chain Capacity Study will inform how training, education and migration systems can best work together to meet the sector’s future workforce needs. It will also help develop the evidence base needed to monitor this workforce into the future. The study will focus its efforts on addressing evidence gaps in priority areas and will consider the challenges and opportunities that sit across the food production, transformation, and distribution workforce.
This study will be underpinned by close consultation and collaboration with State and Territory governments and industry stakeholders. The study will complement the existing work of Jobs and Skills Councils, the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES), industry and others.
The draft Terms of Reference (ToR) set out the proposed scope, governance, and consultation arrangements of the study and the process on which Jobs and Skills Australia will deliver its findings.
The draft ToR and instructions on how to provide feedback can be found on the consultations page of the Jobs and Skills Australia website.
Feedback on the ToR will be considered prior to them being finalised by the Australian Government. The final ToR will also be published on the Jobs and Skills Australia website.
