Despite the fear of Artificial Intelligence (AI) taking our jobs, we actually don’t have enough workers.

The Baby Boomer generation is retiring and Australia’s workforce is ageing. The challenge of finding the workers we need will grow over the coming years.

Meanwhile, more workers will be needed to support the clean energy transition, build more housing and meet growing demand for human services – particularly healthcare and aged care.

Here’s what’s driving this situation and what can be done to ensure we get the workforce we need for the services and infrastructure we value.

Australians live longer than people in almost every other country in the world, and we enjoy high standards of living in our old age.

As Australians live longer, the population that is over 75, and over 85, are growing to a size we have not seen before.

Our ageing population is already reshaping demand for labour and services, and this will continue in the coming decades. Older people need more care and other services than younger people.

And as countries get richer, their citizens’ expectations of government services increase. These trends are driving growing demand for workers in healthcare, aged and disability care.

Older people also typically live in smaller households (one or two people), which means we need to build more homes for a particular population.

Australia is also in the midst of a whole-of-economy transformation to net-zero carbon emissions, which will require substantially more infrastructure, and a major reallocation of labour and skills. It’s........

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