Mining Magazine > Panorama > Indians to fill Australian skills shortage

Indian graduates are reportedly being targeted for recruitment into Australia’s resources sector in a bid to fill the growing skills shortage plaguing the sector, reports International Longwall News.
 
According to a report in The Australian Financial Review, up to 30,000 Indian graduates could be trained in Australia, with officials from both Australia and India in talks with tertiary institutions, training bodies and mining companies to get a training system up and running.

India, which has identified a need for up to a million skilled workers to develop its own resources sector, has been pushing the initiative, the newspaper added.

The 30,000 trained workers will fill a number of roles in the mining industry from truck drivers through to high-skilled professional jobs.

The government has approached Australian universities and TAFE colleges about taking part in the program, with officials telling the AFR there had been a strong response.

Skills Australia estimated in a recent report that Australia will require a further 2.4 million people in the workforce by 2015, increasing to 5.2 million in 2025 to meet demand and the replacement of retiring workers.