A new working paper from Jobs and Skills Australia, Forces at work: adult learning and the Australian labour market, argues that lifelong learning is no longer a “nice to have” for Australian workers, it is becoming essential to maintaining employability, productivity and workforce participation in a labour market being reshaped by technology, demographic change and economic restructuring.
The paper identifies four major forces driving this shift:
- the accelerating pace of skill change
- structural changes in the economy (particularly a move towards “higher skill and non-routine occupations”)
- population ageing and longer working lives, and
- changing patterns of job mobility.
On the fourth point, which is a relatively new one for the VET sector to be thinking about, JSA finds that “older workers (are) less likely to pursue learning for the purpose of job mobility” and therefore “Australia’s ageing population is likely to limit our ability to improve labour market dynamism through greater lifelong learning participation.”
One of the paper’s most significant findings for the VET sector is that the pace of skill change is accelerating across most occupations, especially in technology-intensive fields. JSA found that 91 of the top 100 occupations experienced more skill change in 2023–25 than they did a decade earlier. However, the report makes an important distinction between “upskilling”, ie learning new but related capabilities to “expand” one’s skill set”, and “skill deepening”, where workers become more expert in existing roles as jobs become more complex by “refining one’s existing skills and knowledge.” This distinction matters for VET providers because much of the future demand for training may not involve complete career changes, but ongoing development within existing occupations. The report also highlights that growing demand for digital skills, compliance knowledge, ‘human skills’ ie critical thinking and communication etc, as well as other business and legal skills are driving much of the current change.
The paper suggests that structural change in the economy is steadily pushing employment towards higher-skill and more cognitively demanding work. For example, over recent decades Australia has seen long-term growth in professional, care, health and education roles, while some lower-skilled and routine occupations have declined as a share of total employment. Importantly for educators, JSA notes that workers with stronger foundation skills, literacy, numeracy and digital capability, are significantly more likely to secure employment and achieve higher wages.
Another key theme is the ageing workforce and the growing importance of adult learning later in life. Australians are working longer, with the average retirement age now more than ten years higher than it was in 2000, yet participation in formal study and structured work-related training among older workers has not increased significantly. JSA suggests this mismatch could become a major policy challenge. Older workers will increasingly need opportunities for flexible, workplace-based and informal learning that supports them to remain productive and adaptable over longer careers. The report also notes that many older workers prefer collaborative and practical learning approaches rather than formal qualifications, which may create opportunities for VET providers to expand shorter-form learning, recognition of prior learning, microcredentials and industry-based capability development.
Finally, as noted above, the paper challenges the idea that lifelong learning is mainly about changing careers. While reskilling remains important, especially for workers displaced by technological or economic change, the report finds that most adult learners undertake training to improve performance in their current role rather than to move into a new occupation. This is because of lower levels of job mobility in Australia in the last decade, , and a lot of training being linked to compliance, regulation etc and the importance of skill deepening.
For the VET sector, this suggests that future demand for training may be less about “one-off” qualifications and more about long-term partnerships to support workforce capability development. JSA concludes that lifelong learning is a shared responsibility between individuals, employers, governments and providers, and that Australia’s future productivity and equity outcomes will depend heavily on how effectively the system supports people to keep learning across their entire working lives.
