TIME TO TRADE UP
Youth who want a job do not have to look far. Melanie Burgess reports
AUSTRALIA does not have a “youth employment crisis” but a “youth participation in employment crisis”, as school leavers turn their nose up at trades despite the promising outcomes many offer.
Jobs Department research reports Queensland has a shortage of diesel motor mechanics, panelbeaters, bricklayers, cabinet-makers, painters, sheet metal trades workers, and metal fitters and machinists.
Apprenticeships Are Us chief executive Michael Wentworth says his and other group training organisations can place more than 1000 firstyear apprentices right now, if they could only find enough keen young workers. “We get a lot of young people who are booked for an interview but don’t show up, or commit to work experience then don’t show up to the trial,” he says.
“I’m sick of the term ‘youth unemployment crisis’. Such rubbish. It’s a ‘youth participation in employment crisis’.”
Wentworth says some school leavers choose to pursue unskilled labouring jobs for higher pay in the short term rather than choosing a trade with an apprentice’s wage but better earning potential in the long term.
“A trade is a skilled labour job so they are getting paid to learn then when the economy turns, it’s the tradespeople and people with ... qualifications linked to employment that ride the economic storms,” he says.
Construction Skills Queensland’s Apprentice Annual 2018 reports by age 25, tradespeople typically earn more (average of $69,635) and have more job certainty (95 per cent in fulltime work) than those with a bachelor degree ($63,404, 80 per cent), a nontrade traineeship ($63,125, 92 per cent), a vocational qualification without an apprenticeship or traineeship ($52,978, 78 per cent) or no postschool qualification ($54,587, 79 per cent).
Tradespeople who complete a construction apprenticeship, specifically, have even better prospects, averaging $76,655 in earnings a year and a 97 per cent chance of full-time hours at age 25.
CSQ evidence and data director Robert Sobyra says trades offer better job security than university as the number of apprenticeships offered is in line with the number of jobs that are available.
“The demand-driven university model is churning out a lot of graduates, whether or not there is enough jobs for those graduates to come into,” he says.
New figures from the National Centre for Vocational Education Research reveals 91.2 per cent of trade graduates are employed after training and 62.6 per cent end up in the same occupation as their course.