Australian Government's Budget Proposal For Employment

The Australian government’s budget proposal for educational investment in 2017 seeks to improve employability in VET related jobs whilst enforcing stricter conditions for university based educational attainment. Higher skill based jobs have become more popular and in demand over the past few decades, which has resulted in lower skilled jobs becoming more difficult for domestic individuals to seek employment in with cheaper migrated labour becoming more competitive and cost efficient. Accredited economist John Maynard Keynes attempted to orchestrate similar circumstances in his treasury position in the government, whereby creating an economy with a higher aggregate demand by maximising competitive industries and employment regardless of domesticity.

In the past decade, attempts from the Australian government to create growth through government spending has seen the creation of more debt than national income (see figure 4 below). With the aforementioned limited intervention and holistic competitiveness focus in mind, Shumpeter’s opinion of educational investment with the government is to create a system of skill availability within the expected price range individuals seeking this skill would be assumed able to pay in order to enter the workforce prepared. This approach corresponds with the government’s initiative where “States and territories will be able to access the fund (Skilling Australians Fund) for the explicit purpose of supporting up to 300,000 apprenticeship, traineeship and higher-level skilled workers”. This increases the availability of VET jobs to individuals who do not seek higher skilled professions, enabling more than just the higher paid professions to become a competitive employment prospect. Another aspect of this is to make domestic individuals more competitive than foreigners. Figure 3 shows how migrants are dominating recent employment statistics. Part

Employers will be charged between $1,200 and $1,800 per worker employed under the budget’s new visa scheme which is anticipated to contribute to $1.2 billion within the Skilling Australians Fund. This allows domestic workers to compete against foreigners who seek lower wages, this counter balances the cost efficiency employers have had in choosing these workers, which has seen Australian born individuals become less competitive on the labour market. As such the 2017 budget initiative for education coincides with Shumpeter’s opinions with government intervention in education, as it provides a means for labour to compete evenly regardless of a difference in occupation and