What is SWN?
Southcentral Workforce Network (SWN)
Providing workforce opportunities and solutions to the community throughout the Southern Central Subregion.
The Southcentral Workforce Network (SWN) is a workforce development project operating in the Derwent Valley, Brighton, Southern Midlands and Central Highlands council areas. Our aim is to:
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Increase the workforce participation of local people through access to meaningful and appropriate qualifications.
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Help local businesses better connect with employment services as well as training systems.
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Improve productivity and business growth across the region.
​We work closely with employers, industry groups, registered training organisations, local job seekers, and educators to support, train and encourage local employment from within the region. We are proudly supported by the Tasmanian Community Fund until the 30th of June 2023 and more recently the Tasmanian State Government.
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The project revolves around the implementation of the strategies and initiatives recommended in the Southern Central Subregion Regional Workforce Planning Report undertaken by KPMG on behalf of the four subregion councils (Brighton, Central Highlands, Derwent Valley and Southern Midlands) and released at the end of 2017.
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It encouraged greater collaboration between the region’s councils, education providers training organisations, Job Actives and Industry leaders to collaborate collectively and innovatively address shared regional workforce issues. It recommended an employer services model, matching job seekers with vacancies via appropriate training.
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Given the region’s low socio economic profile (three of the four council areas are in the bottom five SEIFA * rankings for Tasmania, and all four in the bottom 25% in Australia), the Report concluded there is a significant potential in the region that, because of social and educational disadvantage, have been unable to take advantage of the growing employment opportunities in the region. Conversely, the report found that employers in existing and emerging industries are frustrated at not being able to find enough suitably trained and qualified local employees.
The project commenced on the 7th of September 2020 and in its first 12 months of operation assisted 138 people find employment in the region (19 traineeships / apprenticeships), held 22 training courses for community members or students in the subregion. It connected subregion schools to industry held 19 information sessions for students covering Construction, Early Learning, Career Planning, Civil Construction Trades, Agriculture / Horticulture. The project also held forty two pre employment sessions with jobseekers aligned to Transition to Work, Job Active and Disability Employment Service providers.
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* SEIFA, Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas, provides measures of socio-economic conditions by geographic area. is a product developed by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) that ranks areas in Australia according to relative socio-economic advantage and disadvantage. The indexes are based on information from the five-yearly Census.