ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades Where have all the Tradespeople gone?.

I just read an article that states there will be a shortage of electrical industry employees as early as 2004, not 2008-2010 as originally forecasted (for the USA)...

Trumpy,

in Sweden you have two basic choices when you go to high school: Either you choose one of the programmes that will only prepare you for higher education. This is chosen by those who want to become teachers, accountants, engineers. Or, you choose some of the more practical, less demanding, programmes where you can become an auto mechanic, construction worker, chef, electrician and so on. It doesn't give you a license as an electrican, you still need a few years as apprentice after that. It used to be that these "practical" programmes were two years as oppsed to the three years of the theoretical, but that is no longer the case.

I was talking to a young Electrical student, who got sent to work with the company that I work for, a couple of years ago.
And you couldn't tell the guy anything, he knew it all, including how his future Apprenticeship was going to be.
He had the idea that he would finish his year at Polytech and he would be duly Registered as an Electrician!.
I tried to tell him, but he wouldn't listen,
I saw him last week, I asked him if he was Registered yet?.
He didn't say a thing.

Wow, this is exactly what we are dealing with here in the US.

The trade schools are closing due to lack of interest.

The high school graduates are not interested in jobs that you get dirty doing or might be outside of a building in the elements.

We are in a slow down now but when the economy was booming we had to come up with a lot of incentives to get enough workers.

Being short sighted I could say "great more pay for me" but with a little thought it is easy to see that this will case less building to be done.

People will not be able to afford to pay for construction with all the trades demanding so much money.

Gidday there Bob!.
You guys having a slow-down over in the US?.
I must say that I agree with the less people-higher wages thing, it won't help anybody in the long run and would probably end up hurting the Industry (as in the old biting the hand that feeds you- sort of thing).
Last Friday, I had the oppurtunity to stand at the Careers Expo at the local Racecourse, which is held at the end of each School year, for kids looking to find a job when they leave High School at the end of the year(in 2 weeks).
I was there as a representative of the Local Power Board, as a way of trying to attract some new people into our Lines and Faults Staff.
Believe me, it was the most boring day of my life, I had a few kids visit the kiosk, but as soon as they found that they either had to work outside(Duh!?) or climb power poles, they took off!.
From the whole day of 8 hours, I had 3 possible candidates, out of 350 students, the guy from the ETITO (Electrical Training) got 4 names.
There was however a huge crowd around the Business Management and Law Studies kiosks.
This is sad, we already have too many lawyers in NZ and most of these idiots can't find enough work.

You mean I have to go outside to work on power poles.

That sums it up exactly and the thing is these same kids think nothing of snowboarding or skiing in bitter cold or BMX biking in scorching sun.

It seems they all figure work should be a comfortable rest from hard play, I was brought up the other way.

To many lawyers here too.

By the way, how is your health doing are you settling into the new job?

Bob

In Ireland secondary schools (high schools) have little or no interest in aiming people towards practical careers. Everything's aimed towards getting a degree in something so that you can get a nice cushy office-based job.

The majority of schools will push brighter kids to do academic subjects exclusively and tend to push them away from practical subjects and even from art!

Increasingly, kids are becoming more and more snobby about trades and wouldn't consider them at all. They will tend to do any degree, regardless of how uninterested they are in it, rather than to persue a practical career.

It's meant that we're now short of electricians, plumbers, fitters of various types, tilers, technicians, nurses etc etc etc..

Even the number of people who'll consider doing a pure science degree has dropped off as there is more money to be made in areas of IT and those who do do a degree in Science, IT or Business areas won't under any circumstances consider seconary teaching as a option meaning that high-quality graduates are no longer teaching our kids as they see teaching as an option for people who can't get anything else! Hence we've a shortage of teachers!

It's completely crazy! We'll end up with everyone working in financial services and developing software but with no nurses, no doctors, no teachers and no roads and loads of architects and engineers but no one to actually build buildings if we continue too far down this route.

[This message has been edited by djk (edited 11-23-2003).]

Iwire,
I've been back on the tools for a wee while now and I must say that for some odd reason, I actually <ahem> enjoy going to work these days.
My health is better now, than what it's ever been!.
I usually have another guy(most of the time, an apprentice)working with me, which is cool, at least you have someone to bounce ideas off.
Same here, mate!.
djk,
Your last paragraph there, paints a rather sad, but very real picture, of the future.
Having lots of "professional" people is one thing, but where are they all going to live?.
It makes me wonder about this whole IT thing, how far can it all go?, don't get me wrong I am in no way jealous of the IT sector, but if the bottom ever drops out of it, we could concievably have an unemployment nightmare on our hands.
The same goes for Middle Management positions, look at what happens when an International company, prunes back 1000's of staff, in one foul swoop.
I don't know about you guys, but Job Security is one thing that is VERY important to me, I'm glad I am a Tradesman!.
{message edited to correct spelling error}


[This message has been edited by Trumpy (edited 11-29-2003).]