Desperately seeking operative brewers

With a new brewery opening every week in Australia, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for companies to find quality production employees. The skills shortage is not only attributable to the sheer number of new breweries as, in addition, existing breweries are growing and need more brewers. Small breweries are also much more labour intensive than big breweries and there is minimal transfer of candidates from the Big Brewers to the craft brewers, although the majors have lost volume and had to shed jobs.

It is interesting that this situation has apparently arisen in spite of the availability in Australia of a range of training courses and education opportunities, offered by organisations such as the Institute of Brewing & Distilling and some universities and TAFE colleges. Consequently, some questions arise, for example: Does knowledge that employment conditions in the craft sector are not always as attractive as they appear deter some applicants? Are the existing courses designed to meet the evolving requirements of craft brewers? Could a case again be made for the introduction of better-structured vocational training for the sector? The new micro-brewing course at Sydney TAFE is primarily aimed at vocational training and the Craft Beer Industry Association (CBIA) hopes that similar courses be mounted in other states. That the initial course was swamped with more applicants than could be accommodated indicates that there is a potential unmet demand for vocational training for the sector.