How did we get here from there?

According to the organisation called "Skills Australia" - there is a big problem with our workforce participation rates and other things.

"There is definitely room for Australia to improve its workforce participation levels, particularly among men of prime working age, women aged 25 to 34, and older Australians."

Our participation rates are way below that of other OECD countries. This is a polite way of saying that those identified find it difficult to gain meaningful employment in Australia.

Skills Australia also calls for a comprehensive national adult language, literacy and numeracy strategy to lift the unacceptably low current levels.

"40 to 50 per cent of the working age population has low literacy and numeracy skills, and there’s been little improvement in recent years."

The big questions are "How did we get here?" and "What are we doing about it?"

Fortunately I think that Julia is up to the task of fixing it - or at least I hope she is. She will need to be - given the decade long lack of action by the previous government. If I was a conspiracy theorist then I might be tempted to think that the coalition actually planned for this outcome - especially given its nasty little experiment with WorkChoices.

But my analysis lite view does postulate that they are related.

These issues are clearly a result of the "big business" domination of the previous coalition government and the widespread use of that obnoxious 457 visa to deal with imaginary and confected "skill shortages".

Yes Virginia, for well over a decade our corporations both large and small have been discarding their Australian workforces in favour of imported labour - because the imports are cheaper, more compliant and they aren't union members. And the resulting savings have gone straight to the wallets of those corporate CEO's and their yes men advisers.

Finally this problem has been noticed by a responsible organisation with the ability to make some noise about it. But the damage has already been done - working aged men, younger women and older Australians have been seething about this for a long while - and wondering when someone will act.

Well it may have been noticed but I don't expect any improvement in the short term - because big business still pulls the strings in our parliaments.