Queensland invests in digital skills
The Queensland government has announced its four-year Digital Professional Workforce Action Plan, which backed by $8 million will help those affected by COVID-19 to access digital reskilling.
The plan is to reach 300,000 Queenslanders in four years after implementing a digital career campaign, and build a directory with digital career opportunities and matching studies information. The state government expects this will result in an increased supply of digital professionals in the state.
The action plan then talks about working with education providers to “accelerate” online nationally accredited ICT and digital microcredentialing and short courses. It also plans for a mature-age career pathway, a diversity action of 100 placements in three years including neurodiverse and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander placements, and establishing a government and industry digital trainee, apprentice, and graduate development program supporting 300 graduates over three years.
Increase access to digital training in regional areas to meet unique labour market requirements, promote remote working to increase access to jobs from those in regional areas.
The plan also seeks to promote collaboration across business, academia, and government to help identify future skills demand. It also plans to support small to medium business to embrace digital transformation and invest in skilling and reskilling.
The ultimate goal is to supply “an additional 10,000 digital professionals by 2024 through investing in skilling and reskilling and attracting a broader range of people into digital professions”, the announcement said.
250 IT jobs for Western Australia
The Western Australia Department of Education is investing $504 million in the creation of a local innovations centre and ICT services, including user experience, technical advice, solutions development, application management service, and infrastructure managed services, creating a new operating ICT model for the department.
The project was awarded to a consortium of two WA-based organisations, Kinetic IT and ASG Group, which promised the creation of 250 jobs. These will be created through the upcoming regional innovation centre but there is also indigenous traineeship, graduate positions, and typical hiring from the two organisations.
Western Australia has also unveiled its digital plan for improving government services and technology efforts.
Digital Transformation Agency adopts smart digital records management software
The Digital Transformation Agency (DTA) has selected Records365 from Australian company RecordPoint to update its systems. The smart digital records management software has been designed for records managers, creators, and information users within government.
Minister for Finance Simon Birmingham said the software will provide greater transparency and accountability.
Records365 uses machine learning, full text extraction, and natural language processing to automate the process of records management from creation to disposal. According to Minister for Employment, Workforce, Skills, Small,and Family Business Stuart Robert, the software allows for the application of records control to content no matter where it is stored—in network drives, email, and bespoke systems.
Commonwealth Bank wants 600 engineers
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia has announced a plan to hire 50 engineers per month for 12 months,with the aim to have more than 600 engineers across software, systems, data, and test engineers.
This is part of the bank’s plan to become a leading digital player in the banking industry. The new engineers would help solve complex customer problems in service of that goal.
The number of Australians working from home continues to grow
An updated study from Gartner has predicted that 45% of knowledge workers in Australia are forecast to end 2021 as remote workers. Gartner defines knowledge workers as those who are involved in knowledge-intensive occupations, such as writers, accountants, and engineers; it defines remote worker as an employee working away from the company office at least one full day a week.
Four years from now, in 2025, Gartner forecasts 47% of Australian knowledge workers will be working remotely at least one day per week. One third of Australian knowledge workers said they would prefer to work from home three days per week, 20% said four days, and 19% said five days per week.
From a survey of 919 Australian digital workers—those whose jobs rely on or have a significant dependency on digital technologies—34% said their productivity had gone up since the start of the pandemic, and 46% said it had stayed the same.
As a result, the research firm sees a lasting impact on how technology is procured and managed, including continued demand for PCs and tablets and investment in automation technologies that allow more flexibility of location in job roles. Globally, Gartner predicts PC and tablet shipments in 2021 will exceed 500 million units for the first time in history.