Australia consistently undervalues ‘soft skills’ in the workplace. The Jobs Summit can change this

This week’s Jobs and Skills Summit makes for easy headlines. More jobs. More skills. More cooperation. Less blame. But delivering on expectations provides an enormous early hurdle for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his government.

The fact that we have a critical shortage of workers and specific skills is not in doubt. But what sort of skills do we need? How do we compete with other countries trying to lure workers from the same catchments? And how do we know what is the next challenge on the jobs front?

A couple of years ago, few were predicting the crisis we now see in teaching — with a massive shortfall in numbers, areas of expertise and even the make-up between male and female educators.