ATTRACTING trained people and retaining them is a key challenge for the wool industry.

AWEX chief executive Mark Grave put the spotlight on the issue while addressing the 21st Annual Woolclassers Forum, held in Bendigo, last week.

"What a difference 12 months makes," Mr Grave said.

"We've had 10 years of fairly tough markets and depressed seasons, but across the country now, the market is buoyant.

"We can now talk about a genuinely strong market, particularly since January."

The Australian dollar had appreciated 20 per cent in a year and the market has effectively gone with it, he said.

"Wool is a viable industry again and it's a unique set of circumstances we find ourselves in today," Mr Grave said.

In the past 12 months, the AWEX-Eastern Market Indicator has lifted from 876c/kg to 1361c/kg; a rise of 55.4 per cent.

The average price of a bale of wool rose to $1209 in 2010-11, compared with $945 the previous year.

Mr Grave said while these figures contained plenty of good news, they also raised significant questions for the industry.

"We are concerned about where our wool classers and wool handlers will come from in the future," he said.

"More than that, it's about people in general coming into the industry and our ability to retain them."

Mr Grave said the ranks of wool-classing professionals around Australia had fallen, with wool-classer numbers down by 834 (or 7.9 per cent) and owner-classers by 1144 (11.47 per cent) on the last registration period.

In Victoria, there are 2768 professional wool classers registered with AWEX (a drop of 7.58 per cent on the previous registration period) and 1193 owner-classers (down 11.10 per cent).

"We have to start thinking five, 10 and 15 years ahead," Mr Grave said.

"There will come a time when production has increased and we'll turn around and ask: 'where are the wool classers we had coming up'."

Nationwide, AWEX registers 200 to 250 new wool classers annually, most of them professionals.

"Whether that will be enough to maintain the industry is something I don't think we, as an industry, have thought much about," Mr Grave said.

There are more than 20,300 professional wool classers across Australia, he said.

" Interestingly, we have seen an increase in women training as wool classers as well as mature-age trainees who want to go back to the land. And we need to ensure they remain in the industry," he said.