The South Island of NZ has really hit rock-bottom lately.
There are reports of some companies being so short of staff, that they may have to close.
And this is not only in the Electrical Contracting businesses.
The same goes for Plumbing and Gas-Fitting and also the Joinery trade.
But, the question that I ask, is this:
What is so nasty about being a Tradesman these days?(Oh sorry, Tradesperson, have to be PC, you know! )
Our school-leavers all want to be IT Technicians these days, whatever that means and although us Trades staff haven't done ourselves any favours, with attracting new blood into our arena, what is wrong with working with Hand and Power tools and Electricity.
Note that I never mentioned Builders, they have all the young fellas to keep themselves going for ages.
Have we become so safe-safe, that learning to work with traditionally dangerous(In the general public's eyes) things, have become a no go zone.
On the other side of the coin, are our school-leavers afraid of a bit of hard work?.
What are your ideas on all of this.
And is the situation the same where you come from?.
Let us know!.

Trumpy,

There is a similar situation in Ireland. The whole school system has been aimed for years here at sending people to University to do something academic. Until very recently there was absolutely no value put on trades by the country's educators.

We have made a few changes though the Regional Technical Colleges have been pumped with money and renamed Institutes of Technology and offer everything from degrees in engineering to diplomas, certificates, etc in trades. So you can actually persue a proper qualification as an Electrician, Plumber, Carpenter, etc etc.. even as a master tiler or brick layer.
Interestingly, as the courses are now more formalised and less of an "old boys club" more women are becoming sparkies than ever before too.

I think with most trades a lot of people have the perception that it's all about being able to move a pallet of paving slabs single-handedly when in reality it's actually not all that physical and all very high skill.


The school programme has also been modified to give more scope for practical subjects.

[This message has been edited by djk (edited 11-10-2003).]

The sitation is similar here. I've tried to find out how you become an electrican in Sweden, but failed. Sure, it's easy, if you choose that career when you apply for high school. But it would be harder for anyone who comes later.

Similar for other trades. I suppose starting work at 6 o'clock isn't what we youngsters yearn for...

Of course, the union are happy that it's halfway impossible to get a tiler, plumber or electrican. But it is beginning to backfire. Electricians are reluctant to take residental jobs at all.

[This message has been edited by C-H (edited 11-10-2003).]

We had brick layers demanding 180 euro an hour at one stage because they were in such short supply..

If it weren't for the guys working on the power lines, then there would be nothing to run the IT industry.

I've heard similar complaints here that many school-leavers see "IT" and computer work as the only path worth considering. As a result, some places are finding it harder and harder to find good engineers for RF design, audio design, telecoms and so on.

Trumpy,
Here in the North of Ireland we intake a steady 400 elecrical installation apprentices per year. Out of a population of circa 1.5million I should imagine that this is a fair number. There appears to be no real shortage here although many firms still report a dearth of good, all-rounders! I personally tutor some 70 individuals at various stages of their apprenticeship.I find that the NVQ system leans towards unnecessary, beaurocratic recording which turns the guys into form-fillers rather than skilled electricians. Over the last few years I have tried to ditch as much of the NVQ as possible in favour of the good, old-fashioned practical approach!

Lyle:

In the Republic of Ireland there is a very strong tendency to move torwards trying to make everything a degree and to teach it as if it were a traditional university subject. Many of the new courses are largely classroom based with practicals done on mock up circuits and cables run behind fake walls.

It's amazing to see people learning brick laying in a classroom complete with a wall that contains block walls on benches Same with tiling! Mock up walls

Hey thanks for your comments guys,
djk,
You guys have the Institutes Of Technology over there too?!, our Polytechnics started rebranding themselves about 5-6 years ago to get a bigger share of the student dollar.
And yes, the trainers here actively encourage female students to take on a Trade Course, but they are often lost to Business Management courses instead.
C-H,
How does that work?, you'd have to pretty sure that you were going to "stick at it".
Lyle,
It sounds to me like NI has got a good system to ensure plenty of tradespeople in the future.
Guys, this is my one pet peeve!.[Steps on to Soapbox]
We SHOULD have been doing something like this over here, 10-15 years ago and now we are feeling the consequences.
Now I'm not willing to get into a political debate here, but I think that the blame really has to be laid at the Government in 1990, that repealed the old Apprenticeships Act and brought in this really expensive and un-wieldly system that we are only just seeing the end of now.
When I left school in 1990, the word "Apprenticeship" was almost a swear-word, that's how I ended up being a Professional Firefighter, you just couldn't get an apprenticeship as anything at the time.
There is a phenomena here, that is called "The Brain-Drain", this is where our leaders blame our lack of Tradespeople on those moving overseas, taking thier skills acquired here, with them.
Everyone in any sort of Trade knows that the truth, is that, all of our Immigration policies are really warped and they just let Doctors and lawyers in and people with no qualifications at all, to live on our Welfare system.
[Right that's it, I'm off the Soapbox!]
Djk,
You had fake walls to work on?, we had to wire circuits in PVC conduit between mounting blocks on a 1m x 1m sheet of MDF on a desk!.

Mike,
Having examined immigration options for various countries in the past (including NZ), I find the one thing that runs fairly consistently through most of them is a severe bias toward being an employee rather than being enterprising enough to set up as self-employed.

If you get a job offer and have your prospective employer approve it with the bureaucrats, then you're in. If you have the notion of setting up in business for yourself, they want you to jump through so many hoops that you start to wonder if it's worth it.

Canada, NZ, and Australia all have complex points systems where you have to get a minimum score to even qualify for consideration. Minimum investment levels such as $250,000 are totally unrealistic for most people.

I don't know what the rules are for Britain, as being a British citizen I've never had cause to check.

If you turn up here and claim political asylum, unable to speak any English (except for the vital phrase "social security"), then it's a different story, but we'd better not go into that!

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).]