'Growing your own' through industry and place-based workforce approaches

[Narrator]

Greater Whitsunday Alliance is a leading regional approach to the education, skills and training requirements of the future, because it's just as important as planning for infrastructure needs like roads, water, and digital. The Greater Whitsunday region has a total workforce of over 85,000 people, and we are changing and evolving.

Where traditional industries are complemented by emerging sectors, the increasing use of technology across all sectors means workforces will require an increasing level of digital skills. Our 2020 future employment study shows that by 2030, our region will require 3,000 ICT and digital engineering roles alone. Collaboration, coordination, and planning for a new economic future is key.

[Kylie Porter – Greater Whitsunday Alliance]

The beautiful thing about Greater Whitsunday is that we're a super strong economy, we really are Queensland's powerhouse economies. But the best thing is, is that we have so much potential that we've yet to even tap technology is literally changing the nature of jobs in our region.

Our region's education, skills and training focus is threefold. We're growing our own by providing career education modules for years 7–10. Industries of the future might not exist yet, so we're educating the educators to keep our pipeline workforce engaged. We're preparing our current workforce.

[Sherry Smith – Regional Jobs Committee]

Through the Regional Jobs Committee, we've been able to respond more rapidly to the changing nature of work.

[Rob Pethebridge – TAFE Queensland]

What we are doing through the Future Skills Partnership is ensuring that the workers have not only the skills that they've developed over the last 10 years on the job, but the new skills to make sure that they can do new and changing roles.

[Narrator]

We know that skills need to be transferable and recognised between different industries because there's no such thing as a job for life.

[Steven Boxall – Resources Centre of Excellence]

The thing that we can do is really tap into the skills and expertise that we've been developing across our traditional industries, and realize the opportunity that we've got, that those skills are adaptable across so many new and emerging industry opportunities that we have. We're really advancing in terms of capturing new industries, tapping into the expertise that we've got locally, and really being able to showcase our region to the world.

[Narrator]

The Greater Whitsunday priority is keeping people in our region by giving them access to roles across multiple sectors. Our cross industry skilling model is providing career pathways between mining and construction. And as we evolve, our emerging sector workforce will be ready and waiting. The agriculture and aquaculture tech and skills hub is developing capabilities.

[Matt West – Australian Prawn Farms]

Now the growth potential in this region alone is massive. We're looking at at least doubling the industry within the next couple of years. AgTech and this industry just go hand in hand.

[Narrator]

CQ University's Greater Whitsunday digital innovation hive is advancing tech skills.

[Pierre Viljoen – CQ University]

Automation is evident in every single sector out there. So it's not that it's something that we are waiting to come over the horizon. We are just making sure that we are positioning our regional workforce for even more of that to follow.

[Narrator]

And we're promoting the adoption of AgTech across the region, because there is more to agricultural jobs than just getting your hands dirty. Through our education, skills and training agenda, the Greater Whitsunday region is preparing for a greater future today. We're for greater.