The hypocrisy of Labor has been laid bare today with NSW Minister for Skills, TAFE and Tertiary Education admitting in Parliament that TAFE NSW will shed 80 jobs in a restructure.
In response to a question from Shadow Skills, TAFE and Tertiary Education Minister Justin Clancy in Question Time, the Minister admitted, “there will be some offered the opportunity for transfer or made redundant.” “Out of this new operating model I expect the net change will be that 80 employees will lose their positions”.
The admission comes at a time when NSW continues to face an acute skills crisis, with the most recent data from the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) showing that under the NSW Labor government, apprentice and traineeship commencements have fallen to their lowest level since 2020. Program enrolments for VET in Schools have dropped to figures not seen since 2019, while the number of government-funded students and courses are also at a four-year low.
Mr Clancy said it is vital the NSW Labor Government comes clean and reveal the location of these 80 job losses, including if any are in regional parts of NSW. The Minister must also confirm impacted departments, following previous reports administration, IT facilities management, and accounting job would be slashed.
“The need for strong, well-supported NSW TAFE institutions has never been greater, the last thing we need is to be taking a knife to our vocational education and training sector.
“NSW Labor has talked a big game, continuously claiming to be “Rebuilding TAFE”, but this announcement demonstrates yet again that the Minns Labor government will say one thing but do another.