Jobs and Skills Australia (JSA) have released their final report: Our GenAI Transition – Implications for Work and Skills. It comes to a number of conclusions about the impact of generative AI (GenAI) on work and, refreshingly, it is not all bad news about workers being displaced by technology.
Unlike the media headlines that we increasingly see about jobs being lost to AI, JSA’s research finds that, at least at this stage, Gen AI is augmenting work not replacing workers.
The report does find that GenAI will affect almost all occupations, but that its impact will be “uneven across the economy”. While some clerical and routine roles do face automation risks, most jobs will undergo augmentation, i.e. workers will need to learn to use AI tools as the work they do changes.
One of the strongest messages the report has for VET is the pace of skills change. The report stresses that both higher education and VET must update curricula more quickly to remain relevant. In VET, this means reforming how training packages are updated, embedding AI and data skills into qualifications, and supplementing longer courses with flexible, short-form training to ensure graduates are resilient in fast-changing industries.
Five of the report’s ten recommendations relate specifically to skills:
“Recommendation 5: Mobilising the entire skills system to prioritise whole-of-population digital and AI capability uplift – Australian governments should commit to digital and AI capability uplift across the skills system as a priority. Whole-of-system efforts should target uplift across the population, in line with the spectrum of needs and aspirations of learners and industry.”
“Recommendation 6: Supporting digital and AI foundations – Australian governments should ensure foundational digital skills and AI literacy are included in foundation skills initiatives, while acknowledging that Gen AI will raise the importance of all foundational skills including literacy and numeracy.”
“Recommendation 7: Embedding contemporary data, digital and AI skills in qualifications – Australian governments should prioritise efforts to embed contemporary data, digital and AI skills in the design and delivery of higher education and VET qualifications. This should include consideration of mechanisms to enable qualification design and delivery to respond to fast-evolving digital and AI skill requirements for different study and career pathways.”
“Recommendation 8: Activating short-form training in digital and AI – Australian governments should consider options to promote relevant and accessible short-form training targeting digital and AI capability uplift and training that provides skills for occupation mobility into high-growth roles.”
“Recommendation 9: Uplifting the digital and AI capability of the tertiary education workforce – The Australian Government should consider options to support educators and trainers to acquire and maintain current skills and knowledge in the Gen AI era. This should include keeping up to date with the implications of AI for teaching, learning and assessment as well as for industry practice in the relevant field. This should be accompanied by consideration of options for AI capability uplift of the broader tertiary education workforce, especially in relation to roles where AI offers potential to increase productivity, reduce administration burden and/or improve the quality of services.”
For VET teachers and RTO managers, this report demonstrates that JSA has its finger on the pulse in terms of the changes happening in the labour market and how VET (and higher education) will need to adapt.
VET Qualifications Reform, advice from ASQA, and a new pilot project from Future Skills Organisation and Microsoft, will all support the kinds of changes JSA is recommending to be pursued. While these will definitely not be all of the changes we will see in VET teaching and learning as a result of GenAI, it is heartening to see JSA give such sensible and evidence-driven advice to governments. It sets the VET sector up well for the future and crucially for the future of our students and the employers RTOs partner with.
