Have you tried getting a “tradie” lately? The latest apprenticeship and trainee data for the building and construction industry shows a critical labour shortage emerging.
This is particularly difficult for popular regional towns like Daylesford and Hepburn Springs with strong demand for new construction and renovations.
The building and construction industry is by far the largest employer of apprentices. But over the past year there has been a 25 per cent drop in apprenticeships starting in the industry and nearly a 10 per cent drop in completions.
This is despite the fact that on average plumbers and electricians earn around $90,000 per year and often more.
Vocational Education and Training (VET) is central to the the knowledge and skills required for trades people. About half of all workers in the building and construction industry have a VET qualification.
The workforce is ageing and employers are concerned that not enough is being done to encourage apprenticeships. Despite its importance, vocational education is often seen as second class to universities and VET qualifications are significantly underfunded compared to university courses.
There have been decades of neglect and failed policy from both the Federal and State governments. The Federal Government has been far more interested in Universities than TAFE and VET and there has been a massive expansion in the number of people with a University degree. Even so there are about three times as many (4.5 million) enrolled in VET than Universities each year. But most of those are not supported by government.
The situation is now so bad that the only short term solution is skilled migration. Here too, there has been massive policy failure. It’s costly, slow and cumbersome for skilled migrants to come to Australia.
In the medium and longer term, addressing skill shortages will require more support for VET. That means putting TAFE and other VET providers on the same footing as universities. Apprenticeships and traineeships are important part of the solution, but they have been badly neglected.
Only around half of those who start an apprenticeship will finish. Bad pay, travel costs, poor employment support and conditions, bullying and harassment and poor training and supervision are all part of the problem. Apprentices are often cheap labour paid as little as $14 per hour and some employers have rorted apprenticeship incentive schemes.
The Victorian Government has set up an Apprenticeships Taskforce to make recommendations to improve conditions for apprentices. It is due to report this year. At the same time the Federal Government has also set up a review to see what can be done to improve completion rates.
