Author: Mohamed Taha, ABC News

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A growing skills shortage in Sydney's west is restricting the growth of businesses in the region, a report has found.

TAFE Western Sydney and Western Sydney Business Connection conducted the Greater Western Sydney Skills Barometer audit in mid-2015, surveying 456 businesses across different industries in the region.

TAFE Western Sydney Institute director Robin Shreeve said one of the key findings was a shortage of "grey collared workers".

"They are people who have deep technical skills who need supervisory skills," he said.

"What employers are looking for in western Sydney are people to lead teams, project managers and people on building sites who can organise a team of workers."

Mr Shreeve said Western Sydney was experiencing a "construction boom" and its economy was changing.

"There is demand for construction workers and we're an ageing population so there's also demand for care workers," he said.

"Manufacturing is still quite big in Western Sydney but we're moving towards a service economy.

"There's actually more white collar jobs in western Sydney than blue collar jobs."

Western Sydney Leadership Diaologue chairman Christopher Brown said TAFE needs a better public relations strategy to attract young people similar to what universities have done.

"We've got to make TAFE sexy again," he said.

"We've got to get tradies back out there and in front.

"We need to make sure that TAFE can provide all of the sort of skill network that makes this economy full of highly trained individuals for the smart jobs of the future."

Mr Brown said key partnerships between TAFE and business, with government support, would help retain trade-qualified workers in Western Sydney.

"We want the tradies who have been flying off to the mines in Western Australia for the past 10 years back and employed in western Sydney," he said.

"This is the infrastructure capital of the world for the next 10 years so it'll be nice to see kids from Mount Druitt, Parramatta and Liverpool filling those jobs."

Company struggles to find apprentices

Matthew Luke is a third year landscape construction apprentice from Hoxton Park in Western Sydney.

The 21-year-old said he decided to start his apprenticeship after attending an expo night in Penrith three years ago.

"I saw of one of their stalls set up and I was always interested in landscaping," he said.

"I approached them and handed a resume in and it led to a job."

Mr Luke said he enjoyed working at Landscape Solutions in Seven Hills as an apprentice.

"We're working on projects, like for example Wet'n'Wild," he said.

"That's something you can put your name to and say you had a part in that."

Mr Luke said whilst he was satisfied with his work, many of his apprentice friends receive poor pay and get bored.

"Some of the wages are low," Mr Luke said.

"If you go to uni you're looked up a bit more but if you do a trade course you're just going to work your a**se out."

Landscape Solutions employs 350 staff, 75 of which are apprentices.

Landscape Solutions recruitment officer Jamie Taylor said the company was struggling to find young apprentices like Mr Luke and trade-qualified staff.

"We're constantly winning work and growing quite rapidly," he said.

"That obviously opens up a lot of gaps internally and not having those apprentices coming up through the ranks makes it difficult.

"We have to source candidates externally and it's a pretty small pool of trades staff to work with."

Mr Taylor said one of the major challenges was getting apprentices interested in the industry.

"School students just don't have the amount of interest in a trade career that they used to a couple of generations ago."

"We need to make it more appealing for the youth."

Key Audit Findings

· 66,000 advertised jobs unable to be filled

· 54 per cent of small businesses cannot fill positions

· 78 per cent of medium to large business cannot fill positions

· Half of job applicants are under-qualified for positions

· Skills shortage expected to affect 7 out of 10 businesses in the future

· Management positions hardest to fill accounting for 30 per cent of unfilled roles