CCF WA is seeking industry input on skills shortages and priorities in civil construction in response to the annual review of the State Priority Occupation List (SPOL). Please have your say by February 17 and help CCF WA and the Construction Training Council represent the civil construction industry's skills needs to Government. 

WHAT IS SPOL?

SPOL is produced annually by the State Government Department of Training and Workforce Development (DTWD). SPOL helps the Government allocate its funding for vocational education and training (VET) in WA, including which qualifications receive additional subsidies. It also informs workforce development planning in the State and is used as a key source of labour market evidence in a number of important policy areas, including development of the Western Australian Skilled Migration Occupation List (WASMOL) and the Graduate Occupation List (GOL).

SPOL is also used to inform the development of WA’s State nominated migration program (SNMP), to help target those occupations in genuine need and where local workers cannot fill such jobs.

SPOL has five priority ratings:

• State Priority 1 (the highest)
• State Priority 2
• State Priority 3
• Identified Occupation (inconsistent or conflicting evidence for inclusion – being monitored by DTWD)
• Not identified as a priority (no evidence for inclusion)

 

HOW DOES SPOL RANK CIVIL CONSTRUCTION SKILLS?

Traditionally, trade-level skills in civil construction have been assigned the lowest priority on SPOL, whereas building trades (e.g. bricklayer, carpenter, tiler, plumber) have always been assigned a State Priority level. The reasons for this disparity include:

• The building trades are generally better understood and more easily identified and classified
• The ANZSCO rating system (which forms the basis of SPOL) gives building trades a higher skill level.
• ANZSCO does not even recognise some civil construction skills, e.g., pipelayer, trenchless operator, utility worker – meaning SPOL cannot recognise them either.

In response to recent industry input, some civil construction skills (e.g.  Grader Operator, Excavator Operator) are now listed as ‘identified’ – this means that DTWD has acknowledged industry concerns but requires more statistical evidence.

If your business is affected by skills shortages, CCF strongly encourages you to contribute to the SPOL review by completing the brief survey below. Your response will assist the Construction Training Council to provide  information to DTWD on our industry's skills needs, and may help ensure that any skills shortages in civil construction are more accurately recognised on SPOL in future.

Please respond to the survey below (or click here to open the survey as a separate page) by February 17, 2020.