How HR can address skill-set concerns

With many workers still struggling to align their skills with available employment, it is becoming more apparent that a learning mindset is arguably the bigger hurdle.

As upskilling increasingly becomes the currency behind hiring in 2026, employers should encourage the development of AI literacy and critical thinking skills for both current and future staff – and in a job market that demands more and more, this may mean hiring for foundational expertise and investing in industry-relevant upskilling on the job.

According to RMIT Online research conducted with Deloitte Access Economics, 54 per cent of the workforce operates with a beginner level of AI literacy. At the same time, workers are twice as likely to understand basic, technical tasks as they are to possess judgement skills.

The statistics tell a story of a misaligned workforce, with one in three unemployed Australians – more than a million individuals – finding it difficult to find a role that matches their current experience, while hiring managers continue to face talent shortages.

RMIT Online chief executive Nic Cola explained that the Australian labour market has shifted, and the baseline definition of a skills match has evolved.

He said: “For the 1 million jobless Australians trying to re-enter the workforce, their existing experience remains incredibly valuable, but we need to help them find roles that align with those skills in a modern, digitally enhanced context.”

The challenge for hiring managers, he explained, is recognising deep transferable experience while cultivating increased digital and technical capabilities and navigating the fundamental shift in what constitutes a skills match.

At the same time, Cola noted that younger candidates can present a combination of technical capability and overconfidence, increasing the risk of workplace errors, “while mature workers remain hesitant to adopt AI, leaving significant productivity gains on the table”.

Compounding the issue, structural frameworks remain deficient – while nearly 90 per cent of Australian organisations anticipate medium to high AI augmentation, less than half of surveyed workers receive formal AI training from employers.

Cola explained that a digital credential model, as implemented by RMIT Online, may be a solution for HR struggling to balance objectives and reality.

Focused, industry-aligned and flexibly obtained digital credentials, he said, can complement ongoing expertise and offer a highly scalable solution.

“Instead of constantly battling in a tight recruitment market, organisations can deploy these targeted credentials to organically close critical evaluation gaps within their existing teams, lifting overall productivity and driving genuine innovation from within.”

And for workers, “while upskilling in AI won’t solve every structural problem a jobseeker faces, it is an increasingly important string to their bow to complement their existing industry experience”, Cola said.

AI literacy also pays off financially – shifting from a beginner to an intermediate level of AI literacy can amount to annual wage benefit of approximately $7,000 for a full-time worker, and more than $10,000 for an advanced level of capability.

Further, ongoing coverage of upskilling as a job insulator has shown it benefits both employers and employees, allowing for a more stable, sustainable workforce and more capable, versatile workers.

In this way, employers are being urged to establish the structural and cultural means to diversify employee capability and predict which technical skills will become increasingly in demand.

Cola said: “A flexible, targeted model where professionals can pick up specific, high-demand digital credentials ensures their hard-earned experience remains modern, competitive, and highly valued by employers – all without forcing them to hit pause on active employment and income generation.”

He added: “Avoid holding out for the perfect technical candidate.”

“To get jobless Australians back into aligned roles, we don’t need them to start their education from scratch. Instead, we need to normalise continuous learning as a track that runs parallel to a career.”

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