Skills shortage - Mick's solution

So Australia has a skills shortage, much of it in traditional trades including the building trades. And the government is going to fix it by building Commonwealth funded TAFES. Now I can only comment from my perspective as a capenter/joiner but it seems to me that they've put the cart before the horse. The TAFES are already there, but you need to have an apprenticeship in order to do the training courses.

Now an apprentice spends about 42 weeks of the year on the job and about 4-6 weeks a year at TAFE. They learn sweet FA at tech and the bulk of their skills and knowledge are learnt on the job. At one place where I was factory foreman and had 12 apprentices they actually did all their tech at work as well. Now the government admits that part of the solution lays in changing the attitude of people to a career in the traditional trades but the prevailing attitude seems to be that the white collar theoretical stuff is worth far more than the actual hands on blue collar stuff. Otherwise they'd be trying to fix the problem from the other end - getting people to take on apprentices.

Last time I looked, I could expect a total of about $9K in subsidies over 4 years if I took on an apprentice. Now this may look like a lot, some people may even think of it as "money for nothing". But how much will it cost per student per year to build and staff these new TAFEs? And how much is my accumulated knowledge and skills worth? How much time will I lose each day/week/year in training the apprentice, fixing their stuff ups, administering all the red tape that comes with employing someone?

Back in medieval times (and possibly a bit more recently) parents used to pay a master tradesman to take on their son as an apprentice. So the government would like me to take under my wing a smart asred, know it all teenager with no skills and no job and teach them all that I know (or at least all they're willing to learn) for the princely sum of $9K. That works out to about $1.30 per hour for 4 years of one on one training. Granted, they'll be making money for me at some stage, but even with a keen kid it may take six months before I break even on their wages compared to their output. And the potential for losses is alarming.

If the government took a good look at the building industry they'd realise that most people are engaged as sub-contractors. It's a hungry, competitive world out there and if I need blokes for a job I want ones with all their own gear, insurances and a head full of brains. And when things get quiet they don't cost me anything. The apprentice on the other hand costs money from day one, subsidies don't arrive for quite a while and he'll still cost me money when he's not productive, sick, on holidays, hungover etc etc. I need to take out workcover, with hold tax and pay holidays and sickies, all things I don't need to do for a subbie. He'll also be using my tools for a while :eek: . So how much is it worth to give someone a trade? As a carpenter I've always been able to find work, even when things were really quiet. Even allowing for massive changes in our economy, society and the way we work I believe that a trade as a carpenter is the closest thing you'll get to a garuantee of life time employment.

So what I propose is: Subsidise the apprentice's wages to the tune of whatever he/she would be entitled to on unemployment benefits. The government will be paying it into their future, sort of like the old "give a man a fish and he has a meal for a day, teach him to fish and he has meals for the reast of his life" (or however it goes). If it's a mature age apprentice with kids then the subsidy will be higher (as are his wages). Now this is money that the government would be paying out anyway in most cases, but it's a pretty sure bet that the recipients won't be needing the dole anymore when they finish their time.

Add a few roving inspectors, experienced tradespersons with Cert IV in training/assessing to check on the quality of the on job training and to keep all the players honest and the picture is complete.

Comments, flames, whatever, what do you think? Might be a bit simplistic for some people but sometimes the simple and elegant solutions work the best.

Mick

Mick,

If you mean that the equivalent of the dole is what an apprentice is earning I'm all for it. I do think that a top-up from the trade would be appropriate each year as the apprentice became more useful, but the notion of a person being paid an unworkable wage while learning a trade is preposterous.

There is no need for anyone to waste those extra years at school when at 15 they could be out getting their ears boxed off and earning an allowance while they train.

Trouble is, I keep hearing words like "equity" and "living wage" and nothing about "cost of learning" "value of training to the trainee" etc.

The bleeding hearts would love you to pay tradesman's wages from day one (where's the incentive for that?)

I'll bet that none of those on this board with a trade background regret earning their stripes!

cheers,

P

Midge,
wasn't proposing that they be paid a pittance (no offense meant or taken), just that the government paid them whatever they'd be getting on the dole and the employer topped it up to bring it to whatever the award required (or ore if they were worth it).

Mick

I actually think one of the elements missing from the whole trainee thing is the PITTANCE!!

I don't wish hardship on anyone, but there can be no sense of having earnt their wage, if big gobs of money are handed to them without them having the skills to earn a return.

Because there is no personal cost in obtaining qualifications these days (and by that I mean financial sacrifice as well as physical effort) the qualifications themselves have a lesser value than they once had.

It is one thing to provide training, and altogether a different thing for the recipient to value that training.

Don't know if I'm making sense....is it Friday yet???

P (waiting for the postman who is bringing his LA smoother anyday now- served my hardship time a few years ago!)
:D :D :D

hear hear Mick, got it in one mate, on the job cannot be beaten. Those who can do/have done, instruct those who want too, in real world situations with less centralisation.

Hi Guys,
About time that someone bought up this subject.
Im with Mick on this 100%.....and u too midge.
It seems that whenever one reads the paper these days all one can see or read about is the supposed shortage of skilled and unskilled labour.
Over here in the west, the supply of unskilled labour has all but dried up IE: those poor bastards on the dole collecting all the benefits that would actually like to work....dont want to cos in most cases they are actually worse off....probably not in cash terms but in real terms.
Then you have the peanuts that have no intention of working...if i had 10 bucks for the amount of people that have rung me "supposedly" to apply for any available work, yet are more concerned about finding a few names with which to put on their dole forms i would be a very rich man.
GIVE ME A BREAK.....there isnt a labour shortage in this country, yet there a definate shortage of people that want to actually want to work...wether it be cos they will be worse off financially(amazing when u think about it) or are simply bone idle and do NOT HAVE TO work if it doesnt suit them.

Im 37 years old...yeah i know im a pup compared to a lot that inhabit the forum.
I started my business nearly 20 years ago.In those days the dole was a subsistence payment....enough dough to keep you alive untill you could manage to find a job...im sure a few of the forum members know exactly what it was worth 20 years ago....no rent assistance, health care card, discounts on the rego on the car etc etc..........it makes me friggin sick to be honest.
In those days i was actually better off by starting a business than being on the dole.......these days i would better off the other way around.....go figure!!!
GET THIS.... the union movement here in WA is really big on traineeships to cleaning business, but only if the business can employ a trainee for a min 20 hours per week. What about guys like me that can provide 4 people with 5 hours per week...wouldnt the results be the same...the learning is the same but instead of 1 unskilled person...we have 4 persons trained.....apparently not good enough by all accounts.
Like Mick says ....lets spend a pile of dough training someone and not be able to stop them going somewhere else once there training is complete......where is the benefit to the employers to actually train people. Lets be honest it isnt "rocket science" knowing how to clean a s##house....most of us work out to do it all by ourselves, yet according to the guys here in WA i must send my employees to a course lasting nearly 12 weeks to learn just that!!

Im very sorry if i have bored people with this post but it really gives me the willies....the sooner the govt's, both labour and liberal FORCE people into the workforce rather than pander to dogooders that suggest that the majority are under priveleged,if not just down right lazy.
Oh , for the inevitable naysayer that doesnt agree.....my father is mature age and on the dole.....he mows a few lawns a week and reports his earnings to the tax office and centerelink. I have offered him a job pretty regualarily but he feels as he too old to head back into fulltime work but would love to if he thought he could keep up with me...pretty bloody good for a 62 year old.
I cant remember the last time that a 20 year old said the same!!!

Good Onya Mick

Steve

Hmm, Well I'm only 26 so I must be a bloody embryo then!

As a good-fer-nuthin white collar worker, I can also sympathise with a skills shortage. We need a decent experienced traffic engineer and there is simply not one to be found in WA.

My wife is a qualified child carer and has people beating down her door trying to get her work for them. So the skills shortage is in mroe than just the traditional trades.

Being an economist, theres that naggin belief that I have that if the government just got the hell otu of the way, then everything would get back to an equilibrium. That is, make the dole a basic subsistence level, and let the apprentices and bosses work it out for themselves. If Carpenters are in short supply, then the boss will be gettign well paid for his scarce skills, and in turn his apprentices will get well paid. Slappnig blanket 'honest, low wages' on people is not the way to go.

If gas fitters all of a sudden are in short supply, then the pay wil go up and 16yr olds will head in that direction. The mroe meddling the government does, the more they stuff it up.

It is NOT the governemnts responsibility to sort out the problems of your business. I really get tired of the government bashing that goes on here sometimes. 16yr olds should bloody well take respnsibility for themsleves. If they want a philosophy degree, then great, if they want to fyack around then don't expect hte governmetn to pay for you to waste someones time as an apprentice.

2bobs worth!

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the sooner the govt's, both labour and liberal FORCE people into

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I'm an employer and I can say that I definately don't want people who are forced to work in my employ. They'd do a f..ed job and it would cost me time managing them. Bad for business.

Unfortunately there is a very small percentage of the workforce that don't want to work or are incabable of getting a job. There is not much that can be done about it. We could stop paying them the dole but we'd end up like the U.S. where people resort to crime to in order feed themselves.

15 and 16 year olds don't want to be in the trades because it's not fashionable and the pay of a first year apprentice is pitiful. Like Adam said you start to pay more the job becomes attractive. I'm in the computer game and we had to pay large sums of money to attract good staff in the late nineties. In turn I could charge my clients premium rates because our services were in demand. After the DotCom crash, I could get people much cheaper. I've also had to reduce the price we charge our customers. It's called a market economy.

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I started my business nearly 20 years ago.In those days the dole was a subsistence payment....enough dough to keep you alive untill you could manage to find a job...im sure a few of the forum members know exactly what it was worth 20 years ago....no rent assistance, health care card, discounts on the rego on the car etc etc..........it makes me friggin sick to be honest.
In those days i was actually better off by starting a business than being on the dole.......these days i would better off the other way around.....go figure!!!

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If you really think you'd be better off on the dole why don't you try it. This is what people were saying 20 years ago too.

Part of the problem is the modern business ethic ... and sorry, but you blokes are going to cop a bit of the serve here too. The idea that the only thing that matters is the final profit margin is the basis of modern business practices. The concept of valuing other things such as the product, the customer, community, the trade/profession, etc, carries no weight in modern business. The ONLY thing that matters is the final profit.

This has led to such stupidity as banks closing a branch merely to raise enough money to raise this year's profit line (look back to the eighties). Then doing the same thing to another branch the next year.

Back in the 'good old days', which had a lot wrong with them as well as some stuff that was right, professions and trades alike saw it as their responsibility to train the next generation. Hence you saw carpenters taking on a young apprentice and teaching him the job. This wasn't affected by the introduction of TAFEs, just shifted some of the training. Sadly, the rot had set in by then.

The profit.

It became cheaper to employ contractors rather than employ staff to do the job yourself ... and one of our respondents to this thread has said exactly that. Okay, part of the cost of employing people is government enforced, but smart employers have always looked after their staff. And in a responsible world, we pass those costs onto the purchaser.

But, as the urge to contract out became stronger, because you could do it cheaper, contracting got pushed further down the line. Whereas once a developer paid a builder to build a house, a builder who had the staff and apprentices in shop, now that builder employs a bevvy of contractors.

The question is, why is it cheaper to emply contractors? Because when you employ someone from a pool like that, you can drive the price down. By buying the cheapest contractor, you reduce your costs and increase (or maintaing) your profit (or something resembling it), while at the same time, reduce your own risks (eg an apprentice ****1ng up).

This is good for your business, but it makes it harder for the next level down to make a profit and so on. Eventually, you reach the point where the bloke actually driving in the nails has such a tiny potential for profit (as opposed to slavery), that he can not afford the risks of paying an apprentice.

Little or no training, plus reduced or no profits for trained personell = people not coming into the trade = staff shortage.

And at the top of the pyramid, you have the big businessman, the bloke who is having no trouble making a profit because he is applying pressure on the entire pyramid - that businessman is being forced by his shareholders to make an INCREASED profit next year (not just a profit, but an increased one) because that is the demand of modern business practice.

Nowhere in the modern business ethic is any consideration given to anything but profit.

Now, before you get angry with me for calling you immoral or whatever, humans do care about other humans and there are and will always be people who are willing to reduce their profits to help others. Few, in fact, don't. But, this becomes harder to do the further you get away from the poor bugger actually slamming in the nails.

The concept of 'user pays' is an example of the same business ethic from another viewpoint - it looks great on the surface but it's why most tradesmen can not afford to send their kids to these TAFEs and Universities.

The answer?
Hell, it's not in tradesmen going broke by employing apprentices. It's not by the government throwing money at training.
The answer lies in our entire society devaluing money and revaluing people. It's about us becoming a compassionate society again. The basis for this is there now, because humans are basically a compassionate animal. However, to achieve this, we have to overturn modern business ethics and that is becomming harder as more businesses become bigger and multinational.

Take your building trade - if you trace the chain upwards, I wonder how many houses being built finish at a big business, perhaps one with some allegiance to a non-associated multi-national (eg banks or other financial enterprises).

In the past, we've overthrown such situations with revolutions - the famous French bunfight is a good example, both of how it can be done and how it can go horribly wrong. As modern business becomes more entrenched, this will become harder and remember, right at the top of the tree, are companies with budgets that Costello would swoon for.

It's about now that some of you are cursing me for a tree hugging socialist. Well yes, I do believe we are knocking down too many of the wrong sort of trees and yes, I have a lot of sympathy for many socialist ideals. But without business, without the flow of money, without little Johnny's mates, our society would not be as comfortable as it is now. Somehow, we need to find a balance between modern business practices and the leftwing loonies. I think the answer lies in business developing a strong compassionate side - the trouble with that is we need to learn how to value it. It begins at our level, at the contractor level, at the bloke hiring the contractors, at the bloke slamming the nails. Without that base of compassion, the current situation will only get worse as we all chase dollars. However, the cure will not happen until that compassion is forced upwards. It would be easier it the top of the pyramid would make that same shift without being forced to, but I'm afraid I'm enough of a treehuggingsocialist not to believe that will happen on a large scale - the whole system is too impersonal.

And before you go thinking I'm just some unemployable nut case trying to tell you what's wrong with the world, I should point out my own background. I was a surveyor in my formative years - twas one for over twenty years. I entered a profession that valued training, where young graduates were taken by a senior professional and taught about being a professional. And that training, the profession itself, extended its view beyond the job at hand and worked to protect the cadastre (land boundaries) and the integrity of the profession itself. Those same business practices that I railed about above have changed that profession and reduced it to little more than a trade. Our society is considerably weakened as a result, though I don't intend to go into that on this forum. And we are now paying a financial price for that, a price that will one day be significant though it isn't at the moment. I've watched, from the inside, a profession be destroyed. Many won't agree with that and perhaps it's my own viewpoint that allows me to see it that way. But I suggest that the whole point of this thread is others coming to same conclusion ... though perhaps seeing different reasons and solutions.

Rant over.
Dammit you lot, I'm supposed to be writing a horror novel, not getting all political.
Grrrrrr.

Richard

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Originally Posted by Daddles

Dammit you lot, I'm supposed to be writing a horror novel, not getting all political.

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I thought politics and horror go hand in hand - well I find politics very scary anyway :rolleyes:

Congratulations,Mick.Pardon the pun,But youve hit the nail, right on the head!

I tell you, there might be a shortage of tradesman but they all seem to be bloody useless! Alinta Gas were 15 days late installing our gas line. Now the plumber is 4 hours late and has not turned up to install the hot water system. My wife is at home waiting and waiting and waiting.

Tell me mick, whyy are tradesman always late?!!?!?!? If I'm late delivering a report to a client I get my friggin ass kicked! :mad: :mad: :mad:

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whyy are tradesman always late

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Didn't you say you were an economist? I thought they taught supply and demand in ECO100 ;)

Your'e right, the government needs to do something about it.

Don't be too quick to bag the dole. As grunt pointed out, there are those who are incapable of work and the social cost of starving them would be far greater than supporting them with welfare. Consider also, that "dole bludgers" take only budgeted public revenue, and plough it right back into the private economy. At the risk of breaking the "no politics" rule, so called "work for the dole" is one of the few good things the coalition has come up with- using government money to pay workers, how socialist is that?! Of course industry subsidies, tax breaks..that's not welfare, oh no.

(BTW, if you work for your money, IT'S NOT THE DOLE!!!).

Otherwise Mick, you seem to be on the right track, and I don't doubt you know your business. I'd consider an apprenticeship myself if the money was there- got a brace of young 'uns to consider. With egard to TAFE training, different trades have different technical requirements and I don't think all training could be done on the job. I'm surprised that young people aren't going for apprenticeships though, given the flash cars that so many tradies are getting around in...

And to repeat a point that's already been made, there's tons of work around, you probably wouldn't give a job to anyone that doesn't have one.
I've got two part-time gigs. Works for me. No, fortnightly paperwork for John Howard isn't one of them...:rolleyes:

As for forcing people to work..well why don't we drop wages down to subsistence levels, remove the right to organise and shoot dissenters. Then we could be The People's Republic of Australia.:(

Who would we sell all the cheap power tools we'd be making to, though?

Rusty.

P.S. If the U.S. gets their man into the world bank, life is going to get really weird, really fast. This new world order business is going to suddenly become unfunny.