What is LMEE and how is it affecting our workforce?

There are more older people leaving Tasmania’s workforce than there are young people entering it.

This is the serious impact that Tasmania’s aging population is having on our workforce. The Tasmanian Youth Jobs Strategy discusses these issues and more, in particular highlighting the Labour Market Entry to Exit Ratio (LMEE) which calculates the ratio of potential workforce entrants aged 15-24 against potential workforce exits aged 55-64. The data shows that since 2012, this ratio has been less than one meaning that we have more people exiting our workforce than we have entering it. The projections in the strategy expect that this is going to get worse, not better.

So where are we going to get our workforce from? Who is going to plant, grow and harvest our Tasmanian forest estates? Who is going to process our timber and market our products? Where is our next generation of forest industry employees coming from?

The news is not all bad. As an industry we can put the right structures in place to support young people into our workforce. We can identify the systemic changes that we can make in our industry to not only attract young people, but to truly empower then to be our workforce of the future.

The below images are from the Youth Jobs Strategy Discussion Paper found online.

Whilst the public consultation on the Youth Jobs Strategy Discussion Paper concluded on 27 October, the paper and further information can be found at Youth Jobs Strategy | Youth Jobs Strategy. This paper outlines common themes around issues in empowering, employing and supporting young people in our community and, in our workplaces. Young Tasmanians, whilst increasingly engaged in education and employment, have the lowest participation rates in the country.