The federal government is investing $90 billion in continuous naval shipbuilding, a longterm plan to create economic growth and thousands of jobs for generations to come.

In order to meet the future demands of the national naval shipbuilding enterprise, we must ensure we have the right people, at the right time, with the right skills.

The government is committed to investing in the skills and knowledge base of the Australian naval shipbuilding industry to help build a sustainable naval shipbuilding workforce. The strategic workforce planning being undertaken will position the enterprise for the required increase in the size and skill of Australia’s naval shipbuilding and sustainment workforce.

This discussion paper provides an overview of the workforce needs of the national naval shipbuilding enterprise and where the workforce is likely to come from.

There will be a number of challenges in quickly growing the continuous naval shipbuilding workforce during its ramp-up phase in the early 2020s. The paper outlines some of these challenges and a number of the actions that have already been taken by industry and the government to meet these challenges. There are no indications of long term problems fulfilling total workforce numbers, though developing the naval shipbuilding workforce is a long term endeavour and it will require time for the effectiveness of existing initiatives to be evaluated.

Submissions are invited on how these considerations, and any other relevant issues, should be addressed in ongoing strategic workforce planning. Submissions will help guide the government’s actions to support the development of the workforce for the National Naval Shipbuilding Enterprise.