June 3, 2009

Skills Training

Now is the time for a coalition to come together to endorse training

Richard Gilbert

staff writer

A broad coalition of construction organizations has launched a new initiative to fill the gap left from a predicted wave of retirements.

The group is advocating the use of an intensified apprenticeship training program.

“If you look at all the forecasts like the LMI (Labour Market Information), they point to a substantial increase in retirement in a short period of time,” said Manley McLachlan, president of the British Columbia Construction Association (BCCA).

“It’s our skilled tradespeople, who transfer knowledge from one generation to the next.”

The Construction Sector Council (CSC) provincial report estimates that 6,400 new workers will need to be hired in B.C to meet increased construction activity from now until 2017.

This is in addition to 26,000 new workers that will be required to replace retiring baby boomers.

The Industry Training Authority and its partners launched an information campaign called Now’s the Time to demonstrate to employers that there is a solid business case for taking advantage of the current recession to retain and hire apprentices, as well as encourage apprentices to catch up on their technical in-class training.

“We honestly believe now is the time to address training in a serious way,” said McLachlan.

“We must look at the current situation as a pause and not a collapse. If we don’t take advantage of the pause, we will be in the same situation we were in two years ago.”

The Now’s the Time campaign stresses that while the recession is temporary, future labour shortages are not.

“When the economy was booming, many apprentices were staying on the job and postponing their technical training,” said Kevin Evans, CEO of B.C.’s Industry Training Authority (ITA).

“This period of slower economic activity is exactly the time when employers and their apprentices should be skilling up to be ready for the better times ahead.”

Close to 5,000 of B.C.’s second-year apprentices have yet to take any in-class components of their training required for trades certification.

Construction associations are on board.

“We want our members to continue supporting our trades skills development because work is fairly accessible now and things are going to pick up or get better” said Jack Davidson, president of the BC Road Builders and Heavy Construction Association.

“In our industry, the average age is 55 years. We need young people to come into the system that these guys can mentor. You can train someone, but you need overlap so they can benefit from 30 years of experience.”

The coalition includes the B.C. Chamber of Commerce; the Business Council of British Columbia; the Independent Contractors Business Association; the Vancouver Board of Trade; the B.C. Construction Association; the B.C. Road Builders; the B.C. and Yukon Building Trades Council; the Automotive Training Standards Organization; the Residential Construction Industry Training Organization; Hort Education B.C.; the Transportation Career Development Association; the Resource Training Organization; the Piping Industry Apprenticeship Board; Propel; the Trades Training Consortium of B.C.; Camosun College; the College of the Rockies; Northern Lights College; Selkirk College; Vancouver Community College; and Thompson Rivers University.

The Industry Training Authority is the provincial crown agency responsible for overseeing B.C.’s industry training and apprenticeship system.

Print | Email | Comment