Employers Need to Step Up to the Plate to Help Address Labour Challenges
Thursday, January 10, 2013 @ 3:59 AM
Prince George, B.C.- “ I, from the 604 area would like to thank all you 250 people, for generating the tax revenue that keeps this province running” with those words, the CEO of the Industry Training Authority, Kevin Evans, opened his address to the B.C. Natural Resources Forum in Prince George.
Evans says in order to keep the Province’s economic engine chugging along, there needs to be increased effort to encourage people to choose a career in trades. Evans says that while ITA has been listening to the needs of industry and trying to address the concerns, no amount of funding through ITA or increased capacity in training programs will address the issue at the end of that educational pipe namely apprentices who cannot be linked with an employer “We have a lack of employer sponsors” says Evans. He says in the forestry sector in B.C., about 15% of the businesses hire apprentices, and nationally , about 1 in every 20 industries hires an apprentice.
“If we don’t have employer sponsors, we will have disillusioned apprentices and we will lose them forever” warns Evans. He pointed to WOLFTEK Industries of Prince George as an example of a company that embraces apprenticeships and presented a quote from WOLFTEK President, Bruce Sutherland “There is no better way to ensure strong effective growth in your business than to hire an apprentice. They bring fresh ideas .”
On the educational component of addressing the trades training challenge, Peter Nunoda, Vice President of Academics and Research at Northern Lights College says the primary challenge is a lack of funding. He also noted infrastructure is a challenge as band width limits the capacity for community based education, especially when it has become clear that more and more students want to learn at home “When you can’t get a telephone line to work, I defy you to conduct a video conference.”
Nunoda says strategic planning is difficult as it has been difficult to get timely information on the needs of industry which has been known to be cyclical in nature. Nunoda also notes it is very difficult to find qualified instructors as those who are qualified to teach can make far more money applying that trade in the industry realm. He says if it had not been for Spectra Energy agreeing to a secondment of one of it`s people, one program would not have been offered at all.
Dr. Denise Hemming, President of Northwest Community College says there needs to be a shift to recognizing and encouraging underrepresented groups such as women and First Nations to become involved in trades training. “`We should be training right now, people for jobs that don`t yet exist” says Dr. Hemming. She envisions education that will offer seamless continuation of studies “ I am about the solutions, you are either a part of the problem, or part of the solution, so you’re either on the path or in the way, and if you’re in the way, please move.”
The two day forum shifts focus today to a look at forestry with the President of Hampton Affiliates being the key note speaker this morning.
Comments
“Dr. Denise Hemming, President of Northwest Community College says â`We should be training people for jobs that don`t yet existâ . . . . â I am about the solutions, you are either a part of the problem, or part of the solution, so youâre either on the path or in the way, and if youâre in the way, please move.â
Good grief, she went to the trouble of getting a Ph.D. and this is the best she can come up with?! Our post-secondary education system in the north is hooped if the best these bright lights can spew out is these mealy-mouthed platitudes.
And where is CNC in this venture?
if the govt would make it harder to hire workers from other countries companies would be forced to train rather than import labour. They always take the easiest and cheapest way out with the help of thier political allies.
The Citizen newpaper quoted someone from this conference saying that employers get a return of 147% from what they put into the apprentice if they employ an apprentice. We have employed many an apprentice over the years and currently have one on staff but we have yet to see a return like that.
Apprentices take a lot of work and the risk is high, both financially and mentally (sometimes). Also, this is not the age of staying with one employer forever so the chances of the apprentice moving on to another job are very high.
Just saying.
B’n’B is probably right: employee loyalty is a thing of the past. However, this came about as a result of decades of employers firing/laying-off/downsizing/rightsizing the workforce whenever it suited them.
Sauce for the goose . . .
Krusty, “whenever it suited them” is hardly the way I would describe a condition that’s FORCED on employers in an effort to reduce costs or go bankrupt.
No employer can do a thing about reducing his ‘Capital costs’. That’s money that’s already been spent, and must be recovered out of necessity from prices when the employer’s good or service sells.
“Out of necessity” because those Capital costs derived from bank loans, and those loans are time based as to their repayment ~ and a business that is not profitable will quickly fall behind on meeting its repayment schedule. The only costs that can be reduced when there’s a downturn in business are ‘Labor costs’. Employers have NO CHOICE in the matter if they want to stay in business.
The larger implication of this is what we should be focused on.
Because those ‘Labor costs’ are always someone’s CURRENT income. And it’s the spending from those incomes that enable businesses to be profitable, in the WHOLE economy this has a serious effect.
With the continual displacement of ‘labor’ by ‘capital’ (increasing mechanisation, technology, etc.,) overall CURRENT ‘labor’ incomes become a progressively smaller portion of the overall flow of costs entering prices. ‘Capital costs’ rise in ratio to them.
But ‘Capital costs’ do not DISTRIBUTE any incomes to anyone CONCURRENTLY with their allocation into prices. They did distribute an income once , but at some time in the PAST. And, for the most part, those incomes were spent AT THAT TIME, and are no longer available for spending again now. Likely as not they raised prices when they were spent, since the public doesn’t ‘consume’ the “things to make things with”, and the ‘things’ we DO consume hadn’t yet been made by them.
What is needed is a method of augmenting earned incomes to maintain a balance between the continual flow of costs into prices, and the flow of incomes into the hands of consumers. This is not hard to do. WHY it is not done is the question of our times.
Hey Krusty,
whenever we downsized our staff it was not because we wanted to. Economic conditions dictated it. Economic conditions were usually a result of less customers in the door, losing a big account, big piece of equipment breaks down and needs replacing, banks that won’t finance properly, etc. etc.
Do not accuse paint all businesses with the same brush!
“Dr. Denise Hemming, President of Northwest Community College says â`We should be training people for jobs that don`t yet existâ “
I believe NWCC is the sme college which stopped running a welding program because the grads were mostly feeding the jobs in Alberta because there were few jbs in the NorthWest.
So, this is a 180 degree turn in policy. They can’t even keep progams in Terrace/Rupert/Kitimat for jobs tha do not exist locally but happen to exist somewhere else. Keep them home, if you can. I suspect that the longer they stay home, the more likely it will be that they will return when jobs are there for them.
I fail to understand what all the hype around PG is about. WorkBC has projections out for the labour market from 2010 to 2020.
The short summary is this: âFor all of B.C., the expected economic growth by 2020 will average 1.4 per cent per year. Only two regions promise to top that rate: the Lower Mainland/Southwest and the Northeast. The Caribooâs projected rate is the lowest at .05 per cent per year.â
In case some people do not know, PG and Quesnel are the dominant cities in the Cariboo region.
I noticed that some people have problems with numbers. So what do those numbers mean? Well, if we accept 2010 as the base year and say that the economy in each location starts off that year with a base number of 100. In that case, the economy in BC, on average, will have increased to 114.9. At the same time, the economy in the Cariboo will have gone from a base of 100 to a whopping 100.5. In other words, the average economy in the province will have increased 30 times more than in the Cariboo. To put it more clearly, we are currently on a projected path to a have not part of the province.
Now, lest we get this wrong. This is on a Government of BC web site.
http://www.workbc.ca/Statistics/Labour-Market/Pages/Regional-Labour-Market-Projections.aspx
Click on the right of this page to get the regional detailed reports http://www.workbc.ca/Statistics/Labour-Market/Pages/Labour-Market.aspx
When you look at the Cariboo, page 3 will have the projected job openings due to economic growth and due to replacement of retiring workers. So, combined there were 7,500 or so in 2010; by 2012 that was projected to drop to 3,750; by 2015 to 2,500 at which it is projected to level off to pure replacement and pick up some growth at 2020.
So, I ask myself, what on earth are these people talking about at this conference? Can someone please reconcile the two pictures of our destiny? Are we on some alien planet from our government and industry and education insitutes?
So, how about changing the them here a bit to: “Government needs to step up to the plate to help address economic challenges”
I do not think too many people here are interesting in hanging around to see this area become like some of the depressed small cities in the USA.
As a previous business owner, I was against hiring apprentices because of all the stipulations and laws involved once they are on the payroll. Paying them while they attend school to me was a no-brainer. Why not hire journeymen and pay the price. The work completed is much better and faster and they don’t run off to school when you need them. The bottom line is why am I in business and what are my financial goals? The path of least resistance is always the “happier” route.
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