The new National Workforce and Productivity Agency is being introduced this month.

Retraining workers and match-making the skills of unemployed people with available employment opportunities will be a key focus of the new National Workforce and Productivity Agency.

The federal Agency is being made operational ahead of schedule to help combat the skilled worker shortage.

It will focus on retraining workers for new jobs in growing industries and higher-skilled roles.

Minister for Skills and Jobs Chris Evans says the Agency will start operating this month instead of July 2012, when it was first scheduled to begin.

He says its first job is to advise the government on how to best spend the $558 million National Workforce Development Fund announced in the budget.

"The interim board of the National Workforce and Productivity Agency will advise the government how to best target the use of this training fund," he said.

"We want industry to provide advice on how we make sure those funds are going to the right places and delivering the right results.

"My department will support the streamlining of these programs and the early establishment of the Agency."

One example of how the National Workforce Development Fund will operate is given on their website as: “Leah runs a medium‑sized aged care service. She is keen to upskill her staff to a Certificate IV but lacks the spare cashflow to invest in training.

“Leah has recently learned about the National Workforce Development Fund. Through this fund, the government will fund half of the training costs. She forms a partnership with a local registered training organisation to deliver the training she needs.

“At the end of the project, Leah is able to improve the skills of some of her employees, allowing them to deliver better care to the aged care residents.”

Mr Evans says the National Workforce and Productivity Agency will attract more skilled workers to remote job sites by creating specific fly-in fly-out coordinators.

The coordinators will work in four regions to help train skilled workers and unemployed people for suitable positions.

The term refers to workers who are flown from their home town to their worksite for several days or weeks and then back again.

Mr Evans says it is too early to say where the roles will be based.

The Agency will be resourced for intensive engagement with industry, industry skills councils, employer associations and unions, in order to help inform government and industry workforce planning.

It will work closely with industry to determine the key workforce planning and development areas needed to overcome skill shortages and to lift workforce productivity.

The Agency will administer the new National Workforce Development Fund to ensure that available resources are targeted to the areas of greatest skills need, and to undertake research regarding the future nature of work in Australia.