Ai Group has found low levels of language, literacy and numeracy skills to be a perennial issue for employers. Poor language, literacy and numeracy will continue to constrain productivity, labour mobility and the capacity of the economy to achieve the higher levels of skills needed for the increasingly knowledge-based economy. With digital literacy now an additional foundation skill, as industry continues to transform, it will require greater numbers of individuals with these skills to be well-developed.

The skill needs of the existing workforce differ from new entrants. Most, but not all, of this group will have already completed an entry-level qualification, and all of them will have gained knowledge and skills from their prior experience in the workforce. The focus on this group must include ensuring all workers have the language, literacy and numeracy skills to deal with further training, access to shorter form training that builds on the skills they already have as their work and the industry evolves, and enabling them to transition from jobs with poor future prospects into those that will become more prominent in the future.