"Better and stronger partnerships between Group Training Organisations (GTOs) and Job Network Members (JNMs) will lead to more young Australians taking up an apprenticeship and helping to plug the skills shortages gap." Jim Barron, CEO of Group Training Australia (GTA) said today.

Mr Barron was commenting at the launch by the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, the Hon Kevin Andrews MP of the New Apprenticeship Action Plan in which GTA will play a key role.

GTA and the Job Network's National Employment Services Association (NESA) will be funded to conduct a joint project designed to highlight leading business practice between group training organisations and job network members. The project will also seek to increase the rate of quality client referrals from job network members to group training organisations.

"Group training organisations underpin many of the key traditional trades in this country and better partnering arrangements with job network members can only increase the opportunities available for apprenticeships to be offered to and accepted by more young people."

GTA congratulates Minister Andrews and his department for taking this initiative given the severity of current national skills shortages. This joint project is timely and has the potential to achieve outstanding results.