Training Tomorrow’s Workers
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(at right ITA’s Donna Anderson and CEO Gary Herman- photo 250News)In the Cariboo region ( which includes Prince George) there will be more than 30 thousand job openings in the next 5 years, nearly 87% of those openings will be created by retirements and about one third will be in skilled trades and technical occupations.
Shifting education to focus on the jobs that are, or will be, in demand is part of the solution, says ITA’s CEO Gary Herman, the other is to have companies open their doors to offer apprenticeships and that has proven to be another challenge.
“That’s a challenge not just in B.C. but right across Canada” says Herman “There are many reasons that employers will use, some employers feel they are too small others will say ‘I train apprentices and they leave and go to Fort Mac’ , there are many different reasons they will use, but part of it is an ignorance of how the system works.”
Herman says there is study which shows for every dollar invested in apprenticeship, there will be a $1.47 return. “It’s important for people to know skilled trades persons only come from three places, you either grow your own through apprenticeship, you poach them from other industries, or your import them which is really long distance poaching. So the message now to employers is we need more of our own.”
Herman says there is what he terms “a tsunami” of activity coming to the region. Although promised LNG projects have yet to come to fruition, he says there is still plenty of activity with Site C construction, mining development and forestry, all requiring skilled tradespeople.
ITA has now added a second Apprenticeship Advisor to the Prince George office. Donna Anderson joins the Prince George office as one of 15 Apprenticeship Advisors in B.C.
“There are several reasons why an employer should get involved with offering an apprenticeship” says Herman ” You get to have some succession planning, you get to download that information from your workforce to the younger ones, the next generation that’s coming. Second, you get to train them to meet your company’s needs, third, you get that return on investment. ”
More information on ITA and being part of the apprenticeship program can be accessed here.
Comments
This guy has his head up his ass, yes employers need to do more and most have internal apprenticeship programs. The big problem is the schooling time, dates and locations. If you have no system in place to track availability or scheduling, you have apprentices booking spots all over the province in hopes of 1. getting a spot 2. one close to home. Then as with TRU they cancel the class because of a lack of students. Its been going around like this for years and can be frustrating for apprentices and employers.
ITA , we need this ? Really, before the provincial government cut way back on apprenticeships and funding for employers the program was fine..but of course the liberals screwed it up as well. Now how many people are working for,this ITA? 9 board of directors, then how many minions below them.. How about let them all go, and put this money into actual apprenticeships. This government is awesome at creating jobs that hire managers and waste money that could put to actual use. Schools need money to have spaces for apprenctices.. We don’t need more government employees.
I 100% agree with the above 2 comments.The ITA is trying to re brand itself with public propaganda, fed from the provincial government.What do these sdvisors actually do? I know several apprentices and not one of them have been contacted by these clowns….It`s complete B.S..It is also totally true about the schooling and class availability.CNC offers minimal training that is supposed to satisfy the needs of the North.It would not surprise me if some of these classes are part of the next round of cuts.Apprentices can not rely on them to be there when they need them, and are forced to go to the Lower Rainland.
To top it all off,when they do actually get to class they can look forward to the EI system jerking them around before getting their mere pittance!
And what are the local MPs doing to solve this problem? Piss all.
Keep the MP’s out of these matters, there’s a reason they’re an MP and it’s not because they’re an tradesman.
cdz- Why should you leave the local MLAs out of this issue? It is up to the MLAs to lobby for this area to have proper training facilities in Prince George so apprentices don’t have to go to the lower mainland, Kamloops etc for their training.
I would like to get retraining but cannot afford to and cannot quit since EI would not cover me then.
Why talk about a need to train people for tomorrow when we hear about cuts to CNC programs. The government needs to properly fund programs, this includes both educational programs plus things like EI and WCB to return displaced workers to the workforce. Proper training should be funded to allow people to get training at the worksite. The alternative is to say that they underfunding is designed to create a future problem to allow for the government to say that TFW are needed to fix the problem.
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