Skilled Qlders migrating for work
AUSTRALIA is in line to lose up to one million skilled workers to lucrative overseas employment opportunities over the next 30 years.
And unions predict the Queensland Government's current slash-and-burn mentality could further inflate the figure.
A National Institute of Economic and Industry Research Offshore and Off Work report found that Australia had waved goodbye to 80,000 private sector professional and administrative services jobs plus more than 6000 jobs in the financial services sector to offshore markets since 2008.
With more than 20,000 jobs moving overseas each year, the report predicts between 700,000 and 1,000,000 workers will leave Australian shores over the next 30 years.
Australian Services Union branch secretary Julie Bignell said the Queensland Government may add to the statistics with their job cuts agenda.
"We have already seen this government embark upon a job cuts agenda," she said.
"The Government has not guaranteed that jobs won't go overseas.
"In fact, the Government has made no commitments to Queenslanders that work currently performed by the public sector will remain in Queensland."
Estimates hearings following the Queensland Budget on Tuesday heard 14,000 public service positions would be cut over the coming year.
Premier Campbell Newman said as of October 5, the Government had offered 3826 redundancy offers, 3162 of which had been accepted.
Out of the voluntary redundancies offered, only 4% of workers had opted for redeployment.
The ASU and the Financial Services Union have called on the Australia Government to look at offering tax incentives and disincentives to retain workers and to develop a policy to only contract services to business with transparent supply chains and ethical employment practices.
