Employers in all industries I speak to are suffering the same issues when it comes to finding suitably qualified employees, which then limits business growth and our ability to service our client bases, so it’s a problem that needs addressing from the whole of our society. Lower skilled roles are harder to fill than higher skilled ones, and unless we find a way to get people onto the career ladder, it’s hard to develop them. Perhaps by answering these two questions, a solution can become apparent: Why are there so few Apprenticeship positions; and why is the apprenticeship completion rate a paltry 47.7% (less than half)? Maybe the following approach to training and employment is worth a try?
Trade qualifications have been ostracised for the last 15 years or so since the “everyone should go to university” mantra took hold. When giving career advice today, my advice is often based on that AI and automation will continue to take over especially theoretical roles, as computers will be able to interpret data much more efficiently than humans. No career will be immune, but we are already seeing everything from writing documents (think Chat GPT/Copilot) to certain lawyer tasks (think conveyancing) and everything in between becoming redundant. In some areas AI is creeping in at breakneck speed, and I heard one young lady who completed a university degree in the communications field two years ago only to find her whole occupation is now extinct, so she now has to find work outside her years of study field. This indicates that roles requiring hands on aspects, great variation in tasks, and human to human contact skills are probably the least likely to be disrupted.
Employers and indeed whole industry segments need to think about how to attract and inspire people into trades. Although apprenticeships have the benefit of being paid whilst studying and also leads to employment within your field of study without being saddled with a HECS debt (compared to University courses), interestingly the “rate of pay” is still a common gripe for both the people considering an Apprenticeship as well as the employers.
Simultaneously, we have a requirement for apprenticeships to be over 4 years. Historically, this was to allow an expert trades person to show the full range of tasks. Sadly, those people are now retiring or getting off the tools. There are employers who see apprentices as a cheap form of labour to sweep the floor and the like, but that has always been the case. Increasingly though, we are seeing apprentices that are signed off without a full skill set. Recently I was talking to an Electrical contractor and he was getting heaps of supposedly qualified electricians asking the big bucks because they had the trade papers, but their experience in one case was 4 years of wiring up solar panels, and in another 4 years of pulling wires in residential new builds – how can he possibly employ them at full rate to do electrical repair work including fault finding?
Speaking to some “old hands” in the training game, apprenticeships used to be seen as 4 years guaranteed employment whilst learning a trade properly that once out of their time they were reasonably capable on their own. For any sensitive readers out there, stop reading now, as the below is the non-politically correct dissection of what people say behind closed doors about the real issues around training. Nowadays (generalising) we have a generation of people with the attention span of a goldfish, often hesitant to do actual work, that also don’t want to commit. 4 years is too long a commitment for many people, especially when they think a YouTube clip can teach them how to do advanced tasks. Combine this with employers and trainers “compelled” to sign off on people who shouldn’t be passed, and we have half dropping out before completion and the second half coming out thinking they know everything and want to be the supervisor launching the space shuttle from day 1.
It is quite understandable that when people have spent 4 years getting an education they can and should expect a reasonable rate of pay. And this is where there is a market mismatch. Let’s use a car dealership as an example. Probably 90% of the work they do is fairly basic standard log book services, perhaps with the occasional tweak. Yet to do this work, they need full qualifications as a light vehicle mechanic. So the service department has to employ effectively over qualified people to do tasks not fully utilising their actual skills. The costs of servicing of a car goes up, and the employer still struggles with staff churn because the staff seek something more. Yet those that you can actually trust to rebuild a car are few and far between. This same basic example applies to pretty much most trades.
Many young people also don’t know what they want until they give it a try. Sure, there are Certificate I’s, Certificate II’s (preparation for entry level positions – but I don’t recall the last time I saw an advertisement to employ a Cert II in our Industry at least) – but what if there was a “Certificate 2.5” that was 1-2 years long (Cert III is an Apprenticeship for those not familiar with the levels)?
The courses should be restructured to reduce the length. A common complaint from students, teachers and employers is that much of the first year subjects for example are basically B*&^ S%$# and a waste of time (but politically correct like “Organise and communicate Information” or “Participate in environmentally sustainable work practices” and the like), so stop boring them all to tears.
Second, use the modular nature of apprenticeships properly. Make the 1-2 years count to giving the rounded basic skill set. By the end of that time, they can join full time employment as a source of talent for the “car servicing” roles, and many will be quite content in such a role at a decent rate of pay sooner (less than those with a full qualification but higher than Apprentice rates), and that an employer can also afford to pay for the tasks actually being undertaken, making the job actually sustainable. Those that want to specialise in for instance fault finding do that (but make the pass criteria more encompassing and stringent), or those that like component rebuild concentrate on that aspect and so on – but without having to do all the modules that they are unlikely to use. The engine rebuilder than gets paid on his expertise and experience as a rebuilder and so forth.
Surely based on the low completion rates (mind you, they are just as low for University degrees) it is worth revamping the structure to suit a bit of “try before you buy”? The biggest hand brake might be from our Industrial Relations system that is entrenched with existing Industry classifications and allowances of all sorts that would then become superfluous.
Which seems like wins all around to me, so don’t listen to the voices of those with vested interests in keeping things the way they currently are and look at where we need to head instead.
Words from the wise
“Being a student is easy. Learning requires actual work.” – William Crawford
“If you think education is expensive, try estimating the cost of ignorance.”—Howard Gardner
“A man who asks is a fool for five minutes. A man who never asks is a fool for life” – Chinese proverb
“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever” – Mahatma Gandhi
As always, Onwards and Upwards!
Fred Carlsson
General Manager
