As advised late in 2006, the Victorian Government, in a national first, through Employment Programs and the Commonwealth Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, have jointly developed and implemented the Regional Skills Shortage Survey Project. The Project was initially developed to address some of the data needs of DVC’s Regional Migration Incentive Fund (RMIF).

The Minister for Skills, Education Services and Employment, Jacinta Allan, launched the summary report which covers all 11 regions and 16 surveyed industries in October 2006.

We highly commend this work between State and Federal jurisdictions, but we find the unique needs of the peri-urban shires of Macedon, Mitchell and Murrindindi are poorly served by a lack of detailed and focused planning data. This is because of the nature of the Employment Service Areas and study areas in general as well as the unique geographic nature of our region. Our major population centres and regional communities are not covered in these studies. Valuable indicative findings will be useful for our planning, but much greater local work needs to be done.

The Board of the LLEN, in collaboration with regional departments, shires and employer organisations is working to establish a fully reviewed 2007-2012 version of our highly successfull environmental scan. This is building on our own Murrindindi Training Demand Study 2005-2006 that was supported through a State Government Community Cabinet and Office of Training and Tertiary Education funding.

We will report in more details to members over the coming months.

The 11 RMIF regions are:

• Wimmera Grampians
• Mildura and region
• Bendigo and region
• Geelong and Colac region
• Ballarat and region
• Goulburn Murray
• Wodonga and region
• North East region
• Swan Hill and region
• Warrnambool district
• Gippsland

we have linked to the regions most relevant to Central Ranges LLEN Stakeholders.

The aim of the Project is to:

• Provide information on the nature and extent of recruitment difficulties at a regional level
• Identify skills in demand and labour supply issues
• Identify occupations employers are experiencing difficulties in filling
• Provide consistent and reliable data

Surveying of all 11 regions is now complete.

Related Links:

• Murrindindi Training Demand Study
• Environmental Scan

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