CPD’s submission to the Energy Industry Jobs Plan Review makes several recommendations that aim to ensure the plan is adequately supporting workers who lose their jobs as fossil fuel power generators close. It focuses on how to create regional hubs to provide a people- and place-based approach to employment services for transition-exposed workers.
CPD’s submission to the Energy Industry Jobs Plan Review makes several recommendations that aim to ensure the plan is adequately supporting workers who lose their jobs as fossil fuel power generators close.
The Energy Industry Jobs Plan (EIJP) is an initiative to provide support to employees affected by the closure of eligible coal-fired or gas-fired power stations to transition to new employment. The EIJP establishes a legislative framework that ensures employees at closing power stations can access supports from their employers to transition to new employment, and extends to businesses in the supply chain. Under the legislation, the Net Zero Economy Authority is required to conduct a review within 12 months of the legislation coming into effect.
CPD’s submission provides both short-term improvements and longer-term suggestions for ensuring the plan properly supports workers who depend on coal- and gas-fired power generators, as these industries close.
Short-term fixes
CPD believes there are some short-term changes that could be made in the current settings:
Medium- to long-term future of EIJP
In the longer-term, CPD sees the need for more significant changes to the way the plan operates. A regional hubs model would be ideal for flexibly supporting workers who are retrenched due to the closures of coal- and gas- fired power generators to transition to new employment or other stages of life. The regional hubs model offers a way to deliver employment services that centres people and place, and over time should be rolled out nationally.
Transition-exposed regions would be an ideal place for the piloting of this approach through a future and improved version of the EIJP, given the gravity of both the climate crisis and the large impacts fossil fuel closures will have on unemployment rates in these regions.
