Despite promising to skill more Australians, the Albanese Government is overseeing a wholesale collapse in the number of apprentices and trainees in every state and in almost every electorate across the nation.

Federal Member for Hinkler Keith Pitt said new data shows Labor’s Fee-Free TAFE skills policy has failed to maintain the number of apprentices and trainees taking up training with numbers collapsing across the country.

“After just one year there has been a five percent drop in the number of apprentices and trainees taking up a new trade or learning a new skill in Hinkler. This compares with the final year of Coalition Government that saw a 27 percent increase in apprentices and trainees,” Mr Pitt said.

Trade apprentices in-training hit record highs in the final months of the Coalition Government and as of June 2022 there were 429,000 apprentices and trainees in-training, 25 per cent more than at the same time in 2021. After just one year of Labor this number has now fallen to 377,645.

“The data is clear, despite all of Labor’s promises to skill Australians their policies are failing and there are now over 50,000 less apprentices and trainees today than when Labor took office.

“We need more apprentices and trainees in our community not less, Labor promised they would skill more Australians, but their programs are not delivering, this is a total disaster brought to you by the Australian Labor Party.”

The official government data shows that in the final year of the Coalition Government in-training numbers increased in every electorate bar one, while under the first year of Labor’s skills policies the number of apprentices and trainees dropped in every electorate except four.

This means under the Coalition’s final year of government apprentices and trainees increased across 99.3 per cent of electorates whereas under Labor’s first year of government numbers dropped across 97.3 per cent of electorates, a damning statistic. 

 Table One: Number Apprenticeships and Trainees In-Training by electorate (QON: Department of Employment and Workplace Relations Question No. SQ24-1)