To overcome serious shortages of workers, both highly skilled and low-skilled, the government will need to look to migration. But fostering home-grown skills is a better and more enduring solution.
Earth scientists are on the skilled occupation list for immigration even as universities cut back in this area. The problem lies with a funding model that offers no incentive to lift graduate numbers.
While skilled migration can help fill short-term gaps, Australia needs a more sustainable, long-term approach to skills matching and development to make the most of the people who are already here.
To ensure foreign workers continue to view Canada as a place to live and work, the government must find a way to keep borders open to all workers essential to the post-pandemic economic recovery.
There is a growing mismatch between what education and training provide and the skills needed in workplaces being reshaped by the digital economy. Advanced apprenticeships can help close the gap.
Young people are the most vulnerable as industry and the labour market undergo radical change, but meeting this challenge could just be a matter of plugging existing gaps.
An initiative to address a skills gap in science, technology, engineering and mathematics may be actually narrowing the pool of students who consider a career in STEM.