A LACK of traditional trades apprentices is creating a major skills shortage for Australian industry, which could cost up to $9 billion in lost output over the next ten years
A LACK of traditional trades apprentices is creating a major skills shortage for Australian industry, which could cost up to $9 billion in lost output over the next 10 years.
Commenting on a recent analysis of the skills shortage, ACTU President Sharan Burrow estimated that up to 170,000 tradespeople will leave the workforce and only 40,000 will enter it over the next five years – leading to a national shortage of 250,000 traditional trades apprentices over the next 10 years.
“If you think it’s hard to find a tradesperson now, it is going to become impossible soon,” Burrow said.
Government figures show that job vacancies in the traditional trades have already risen 20 per cent in the past year and are now at their highest level for 15 years.
“Not only is the industry workforce ageing, but also there are too few traditional apprentices coming through the training system with the training rate of traditional apprentices declining by 15 per cent since 1987,” Burrow said.
The ACTU calculated that the skills shortage caused by a lack of apprentices will cost the Australian economy around $735 million a year in lost output or up to $9 billion over the next 10 years.
Burrow said the worst hit trades have been printing, metal and electrical, and attributed this to the majority apprentices and trainees taking up vocations in non-traditional areas such as hospitality.
She said program incentives were also biased against employers prepared to invest in a full four-year apprenticeship, because the same incentive was offered for a one-year trainee.
“Poor wages for apprentices is also a problem,” Burrow said.
“An 18-year-old entering an apprenticeship in the manufacturing industry is paid only $6.20 an hour in their first year while a fast food trainee flipping burgers starts out on up to $8.70 an hour – an extra $100 a week.”
However the Minister for Education, Science and Training Brendan Nelson blamed the apprentice shortage on a poor public perception whereby young people have been told that the only way for them to succeed in life is to get a university education.
“Young people feel that if they go into TAFE or do an apprenticeship or training that perhaps we value their lives less than those that go to university,” he said.
Minister Nelson said career counsellors and school teachers needed to deliver information about career prospects of apprentices and traineeships in a different way, and recommended shortening traineeships and apprenticeships for the automotive, retail, construction and building industries.
“We can train a doctor in four years, why does it take four years to train an electrician?” Minister Nelson asked.
The comments come on the heels of a recent Recruitment and Consulting Services Associations (RCSA) survey, which found that 56 per cent of members believe that the skills shortages are putting essential services at risk, with the greatest skill shortages in trades and labour, operational and technical as well as healthcare and medical positions.
RCSA members believe the best ways to alleviate the skills crisis are greater workforce flexibility, re-establishing or bolstering a technical education system, retaining mature age workers and increased in-house training.
Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) chief executive Peter Hendy said any response to the skills shortage has to include a more focused approach on the part of all governments as well as employers and employee organisations.
He recommended a targeted approach to refining the national training system; clearer and more easily accessible information for students, their parents and career guidance counsellors; more innovative approaches in the workplace for existing and mature aged workers; and greater flexibility in industrial relations.
