The Tech Council of Australia’s goal is for the tech sector to contribute $250B to GDP by 2030, and employ one million people by 2025. In order for us to reach this ambitious target we need to encourage a range of people to join the tech sector and take steps to address the current skills gap. There is a significant shortage of highly skilled or specialised tech talent across the Australian economy, particularly those businesses looking for experienced workers like product managers and software engineers.
We forecast we need 260,000 people to enter tech jobs in the next four years to hit our jobs target. With that volume of people, skilled migration will never be the main way we fill jobs. Most of these people – 140,000 – will come from reskilling and transitioning workers. On top of this, there will also be young Australians entering from the training sector. But hiring skilled migrants helps with filling jobs we can’t fill locally, and helps coach and upskill local hires. In this way, skilled migration can have a multiplier effect for local jobs.
Supporting international talent to relocate to Australia to fill crucial labour shortages and transfer valuable skillsets to local talent is essential.
