MANUFACTURING MATTERS FOR ALL AUSTRALIANS
- Australia’s manufacturing industry employs nearly one million australian’s directly. Only the retail sector employs more workers.
- Manufacturing accounts for 9.3% of all jobs in australia, 11.2% of all full time jobs and more than 13% of all private sector jobs.
- Manufacturing employs more than 20% of all the blue collar workers employed in australia.
- In many regional centres manufacturing remains the largest employer and the main provider of apprenticships for young australians.
In fact manufacturing employs closer to 1.3 million australians given that many manufacturing contract service jobs like maintenance and many manufacturing storage/warehouse/r&d facilities are counted by the abs statistician to be service sector jobs
BUYING GOODS MANUFACTURED HERE IN AUSTRALIA BENEFITS ALL AUSTRALIANS
Every $1 billion spent on goods manufactured in australia creates or sustains :
SOURCE: AEC GROUP: REPORT PREPARED FOR ICN DECEMBER 2008
MANUFACTURING IS THE HEARTLAND OR CORE OF AUSTRALIA’S INNOVATION SYSTEM
- In the ten years through 2006-2007 the businesses in australia’s manufacturing industry invested $28.3 billion in research and development.
- While accounting for 9.3% of all australian jobs today, manufacturing contributed 41% of all the investment in research and devlopment made in australia over the past decade. Manufacturing is also the private sector industry that employs the largest proportion of australian scientists and engineers.
- That is why in australia and globally manufacturing is regarded as the heartland or core of a nation’s innovation system and its knowledge economy.
- Manufacturing also leads the way in introducing new management systems and new methods of work organisation that then flow on to other industries. This makes it a key driver of both productivity and innovation.
MANUFACTURING IS A KEY STRATEGIC INDUSTRY
As we approach the second decade of the 21st century there are a number of reasons why Australian manufacturing represents a strategically important industry.
- This was pointed out in the new defence white paper “defending Australia in the Asia pacific century force 2030”.
“the government has decided to establish priority industry capabilities which are defined as those industry capabilities which would confer an essential strategic capability advantage by being resident in Australia, and which if not available, would significantly undermine defence self-reliance and ADF operational capability.”
Many of these capabilities (shipbuilding/ submarine/warship design, engineering, maintenance as well as precision machining of composites, manufacture of selected munitions etc) are core manufacturing activities.
- Many of the high growth high skill jobs of the future will be in technology intensive industries such as advanced metals manufacturing, new materials, medical devices and scientific equipment, smart machine tools, and aerospace which are all driven by manufacturing activities.
- The low carbon and environmental goods and services industry is estimated to be a $6 trillion global industry with strong growth prospects. The overwhelming majority of activities in this industry are undertaken by traditional manufacturers.
- Nation-building infrastructure including our ports, road, rail, and telecommunications require steel, aluminium and cement in addition to other inputs. Local sourcing is a key advantage to Australian producers providing a fast start to projects with quality product and timely local through life support. This maximises returns, job creation and economic growth;
- Accessible, smart and responsive local manufacturing will also be a key driver of local investment in the green economy. Access to local supply chains will allow us to extract and supply our LNG, build our wind farms, solar installations, geothermal facilities and carbon capture and storage facilities.
