Therefore, the primary aim of this project was to identify ways in which the essential embedded making skills required to sustain and grow future manufacturing can be maintained and extended, supporting not only the survival and updating of current production but, significantly, enabling the kind of fertile ground out of which the innovation necessary for developing advanced manufacturing can grow.
By providing the first ever mapping of the scale and location of employment requiring craft skills in Australia followed up by rich qualitative fieldwork, this project produced valuable knowledge about the current status of the craft skills required to enable and grow the future of making in Australia, and provided an evidence base to inform government and industry craft education and training.
Outcomes
The project found that in relative terms (that is to say, as a proportion of the entire economy) the Australian craft economy has been in decline since 2006, while the overall economy has continued to grow. The rate of decline gathered pace from 2011 to 2016, but has stabilised in the period 2016 to 2021, with the actual number of skilled craft workers decreasing, but their income and thus gross value added (GVA) increasing. In 2021 Australia’s craft economy employed 116,538 people (1.1% of the total workforce) and generated $AU19.2bn gross value added (1.0% of the total). By comparison, Australia’s craft economy is slightly larger in size and impact than the sports economy, which in 2016–17 supported 128,000 jobs and contributed $AU14.5bn to gross domestic product (KPMG 2020). Craft workers are working 35 hours a week (2 less than the national average, and in the previous census), but still earning more on average than in 2016, and are most likely to be working full-time (67%). Most workers have higher secondary education (79%). They are most likely to be male (though the proportion of females in the workforce increased from 18.8% to 23.6% from 2011 to 2021) and, at an average age of 39.2 years, are one year younger than the average Australian worker (a figure which itself is rising), with the average age of the cohort increasing by one year since 2006.
Australia’s ability to sustain, let alone grow value-adding production industries is profoundly threatened by the generational loss of often highly embodied crafts and hands-on making expertise. This loss of practical making skills and knowledge of materials and their capacities is compounded by the closure of many key trades courses focussed on craft and manual skills, and the winding back of expensive studio training by schools and universities. This deficit not only impacts current industries, but also threatens future innovation and the growth of high-end manufacturing at a time of profound opportunity enabled by advances in digital making technologies.
Final report: The value of craft skills to the future of making in Australia
Project partners
Australian Research Council Discovery Project (DP190100349)
Project contact information
Research team
