Pressure builds in skilled trades

Weak apprenticeship figures add to fears over labour shortage

The number of new apprentices in Alberta plummeted three years ago and is only beginning to inch upward again, a problem with significant implications for an improving economy that brings mounting pressure to find skilled labour.

Alberta’s Advanced Education Minister Stephen Khan calls the weak apprenticeship tally an “echo of the labour situation” from the economic downturn.

And one industry group fears a smaller pool of workers under training only exacerbates impending shortages as the province is ready to boom once more.

Some argue blame could lie in the fact fewer poten-

Whether you like it or not, you’re going to have to start (training local talent)” RAY MASSEY, ALBERTA APPRENTICESHIP AND INDUSTRY TRAINING BOARD

tial apprentices migrated to Alberta when times weren’t so good.

Others say the economy of a couple years ago dampened hiring, with companies choosing experienced journeymen over young workers. There are still apprenticeship hopefuls who report trouble finding an employer to take them on.

In 2011, just 17,371 new apprentices were registered in the province — 27 per cent less than in 2006, according to the Alberta Apprenticeship and Industry Training Board. Both 2009 and 2010 were even worse.

All told, 49,164 new apprentices were listed between 2009 and 2011, far less than the 69,285 during the prior three years.

“As industry slows down, they don’t have the opportunity or the availability to bring in apprentices,” Khan said in an interview.

“What we’re seeing now, however, is an increase.”

Apprenticeships combine a job with classroom work, leading to a professional certification.

It’s exactly what Nate Thompson wants to do.

But even as economic forecasts improve, the 20-year-old has been doing odd jobs for cash as he looks for someone to hire him as a welding apprentice.

It’s a search that has been ongoing since February.

Thompson took trades in high school, became a teaching assistant in Grade 12, and competed at a Skills Canada regional competition.

The problem, he said, is that companies want journeymen or apprentices with more years. “I’ve been looking religiously,” he said.

“I’ve been on the newspapers, I’ve been on sites, everything that hires people for welding. I’ve been on it, and I can’t find anything.”

The number of newly registered welding apprentices rose last year to 2,045, a 63 per cent increase from 2010. In fact, welders are now in demand in Alberta.

Still, last year’s total is just half of the number who entered the trade in 2006.

This comes as industry groups take note of provincial predictions that Alberta will be short 114,000 skilled workers in less than a decade.

One of the problems facing Alberta is that provinces such as Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador, which have been traditional sources of labour, are now themselves prospering.

And temporary foreign workers won’t fill the gap, according to Ray Massey, chairman of the Alberta Apprenticeship and Industry Training Board.

Massey said some businesses fear spending a lot of money on training apprentices, or worry about the safety implications of having less experienced workers on the job site.

The good news, however, is that more are now heeding the call to train homegrown talent, and Massey said there appears to be a recent spurt in apprentice training.

“Whether you like it or not, you’re going to have to start doing that,” he said.

David MacLean, a vicepresident with the business advocacy organization Alberta Enterprise Group, warns that a large cohort of trades professionals are reaching the end of their careers, and too few young workers are being trained.

“We’re concerned about it,” he said. “It’s not a good sign.”

Not only do business and governments need to do more to sort out fast-approaching labour problems, MacLean said, but trades have to be better sold to young people as a career choice.

For for some jobs, that appears to be an easy pitch.

Power company Fortis Alberta posts about 20 openings a year for power line technician apprentices, with pay starting at $28 an hour.

Human resources director Stephen Rex said it gets up to 50 applications for each position. Many of those are willing to move across the province to get a foothold, or from other parts of the country.

“There still does not seem to be a shortage of people interested in getting into the power line technician trade,” he said.

Attuned to the demands for skilled workers, the province is trying to push the labour force ahead of the economic curve.

Khan points to a blended learning program at post-secondary institutions like SAIT, where welding, plumbing and electrical apprentices can do part of the classwork online, giving them more time on the work site.

There’s also a call for easier importation of labour through temporary foreign worker programs, and the federal government recently gave a nod to some of those requests.

An Alberta-based pilot project that allows temporary foreign workers to move from job to job is being expanded. The government is also fasttracking permission to hire foreign workers to companies with good records.

But that’s not satisfying some labour groups. They worry this opens the door to greater exploitation of foreign workers, and also does nothing to encourage companies to train homegrown employees.

Industry groups counter that it’s expensive to bring in foreign workers and they would prefer to hire locally, but must search for workers from outside the country to fill shortages.