National agreements National Agreement for Skills and Workforce Development In April 2012, COAG introduced a revised National Agreement for Skills and Workforce Development. This identifies long-term objectives in the areas of skills and workforce development. The agreement includes $1.4 billion of Australian Government funding for states and territories each year for vocational education and training. National Partnership Agreement on Skills Reform In April 2012 COAG agreed a new National Partnership Agreement on Skills Reform. Over $1.75 billion over five years from 2012 was committed to reform the training system and increase skilled workforce and levels of workforce participation. Australia’s Equal remuneration In June 2012, the Fair Work Commission handed down its first equal remuneration order under the equal remuneration provisions, awarding wage increases of between FWA’s 23 and 45 per cent over eight years for approximately 150,000 social and community services sector workers. The Pay Equity Unit was established within the commission in 2013 to inform matters relating to pay equity under the FWA, including annual minimum wage reviews, the reviews of modern awards, and equal remuneration cases. Since then the unit has commissioned and published an independent report Equal Remuneration under the Fair as well as research on the childcare sector. Work Act The biennial Employee Earnings and Hours (EEH) published data reports on hourly rates of pay. EEH shows a gap of 12.1 per cent between male and female full-time employees in May 2014. An alternative and widely reported measure of the gender pay gap is using Average Weekly Earnings (AWE) trend data (Cat No 6302.0), which estimates average weekly ordinary time earnings and average weekly total earnings by gender. In May 2014, the weekly gender pay gap was 17.1 per cent. The pay gap in the private sector is 22.4 per cent compared to 12.4 per cent in the public sector. Australian, state and territory governments have a range of measures to decrease this gap. For example, the Australian Government is supporting participation through more affordable childcare, and is also working with business to raise awareness and drive cultural
National agreements National Agreement for Skills and Workforce Development In April 2012, COAG introduced a revised National Agreement for Skills and Workforce Development. This identifies long-term objectives in the areas of skills and workforce development. The agreement includes $1.4 billion of Australian Government funding for states and territories each year for vocational education and training. National Partnership Agreement on Skills Reform In April 2012 COAG agreed a new National Partnership Agreement on Skills Reform. Over $1.75 billion over five years from 2012 was committed to reform the training system and increase Australia’s skilled workforce and levels of workforce participation. Equal remuneration In June 2012, the Fair Work Commission handed down its first equal remuneration order under the FWA’s equal remuneration provisions, awarding wage increases of between 23 and 45 per cent over eight years for approximately 150,000 social and community services sector workers. The Pay Equity Unit was established within the commission in 2013 to inform matters relating to pay equity under the FWA, including annual minimum wage reviews, the reviews of modern awards, and equal remuneration cases. Since then the unit has commissioned and published an independent report Equal Remuneration under the Fair Work Act as well as research on the childcare sector. The biennial Employee Earnings and Hours (EEH) published data reports on hourly rates of pay. EEH shows a gap of 12.1 per cent between male and female full-time employees in May 2014. An alternative and widely reported measure of the gender pay gap is using Average Weekly Earnings (AWE) trend data (Cat No 6302.0), which estimates average weekly ordinary time earnings and average weekly total earnings by gender. In May 2014, the weekly gender pay gap was 17.1 per cent. The pay gap in the private sector is 22.4 per cent compared to 12.4 per cent in the public sector. Australian, state and territory governments have a range of measures to decrease this gap. For example, the Australian Government is supporting participation through more affordable childcare, and is also working with business to raise awareness and drive cultural
8th-CEDAW-Report.docx