Trade up to big bucks

Deborah Simpson's Auckland villa was once the home of her great-grandparents. It's a rare and precious link to the past and one reason Miss Simpson spent almost $300,000 on restoration.

She didn't want just any builder for this project, and Kevin Goodall proved to be more than she could have hoped for. "My builder has been an absolute godsend," she says. "I'd put my life in that man's hands - and there's not many men I would say that about."

The 35-year-old homeowner has what many can't find - a tradesman she can trust. She had to wait six months until he was free to do the job. Miss Simpson hired Mr Goodall after meeting him through a "friend of a friend" and seeing work he had done. He advised on whether a draughtsman or architect was needed, helped secure materials and other trades workers and even managed the project while Miss Simpson was overseas for six weeks.

In a city consumed by the property market, skilled tradesmen are becoming increasingly valuable. With few apprentices coming through until recent Government initiatives, the scarcity of tradesmen has seen costs rise for their services. Good builders, plumbers and painters can now expect to earn more than accountants, lawyers and even doctors. And the reason why, according to Minister of Education Trevor Mallard, is "it became very fashionable to work in glass towers and keep your hands clean". Now, he says, there's "almost a desperation in some industries".

"Builders are being offered work after work after work, so they are picking and choosing," says Garry Shuttleworth, of the Certified Builders Association NZ. "Many of them will say it's payback time."

With builders charging up to $55 an hour and often working 60-hour weeks, they can earn more than $170,000 a year.

Mr Shuttleworth says the waiting list for builders in some parts of the country - and demand is greatest in Auckland - is up to nine months.

Bruce Walker, of L n B Construction, has 22 years in the trade and eight months of work booked. He has been able to put prices up in the past 18 months, and now charges $45 an hour plus GST. "People have got to the stage now where they realise they can't ring up and get someone to start in two weeks," he says.

He wonders where the next generation of builders will pick up their skills from. It's a struggle to find apprentices, although he has one at the moment which is "more for the benefit of the industry" - a sentiment echoed by others.

"These days most people don't want to do manual work."

Richard Wilkinson, of RA Wilkinson Builders, points to the reduced emphasis schools place on traditional trade teaching.

Mr Wilkinson, 33, has been working for himself for eight years. On a recent visit to his old school, Auckland Grammar, he went to show his daughter the woodwork room, where he was taught.

It wasn't there any more.

"The classroom where they did it is now filled with computers."

It's the Government, says Mr Wilkinson, which allowed the emphasis on trades training to slacken. "People have this mindset you have to go to university, you have to get a $30,000 debt, before you do anything."

He employs two apprentices. In four years they will qualify without a student loan and on a good wage. At Auckland Grammar, principal John Morris points to the new technical block as the school's home to trades training. But he concedes the hands-on work that was known as woodwork and metalwork doesn't exist in a recognisable form. "The syllabus changed."

Now, students are driven more towards design with only small building elements. "A lot of our boys who are very good with their hands don't get the opportunity as much as they like. There is a gap."

Mr Morris said there was a "general philosophy that needs to be mended".

"I think a lot of kids who go to university shouldn't. People are going to university and earning degrees and coming out with no chance of a job."

He said the Ministry of Education needed to show more leadership in helping students decide what they wanted to do after secondary school. A worldwide trend towards improving the percentage of tertiary qualified people has been interpreted in New Zealand as pushing more students through university.

"We really need to have a reassessment about the desire to go to university," says Mr Morris.

His comments sound close to those made by Prince Charles in a private memo about Britain's "learning culture", which sparked outrage. Prince Charles wrote:

"What is wrong with everyone nowadays? Why do they seem to think they're qualified to do things beyond their technical capabilities?"

Mr Morris said he had thought the heir to the throne had "quite a well thought through argument". "I felt a bit sorry for him ... there's nothing wrong with what he said."

It's hard to find anyone to disagree. Even Mr Mallard and his National opponent Bill English have similar thoughts, although with their own political spin.

Mr English says now is the time to push for more apprentices. Mr Mallard points to new figures - released today in the Herald on Sunday (see graphic) - showing big growth in the Government's Modern Apprenticeship scheme.

He is, however, well aware there is still a problem. "We have pressured kids into going to university when it could have been better for them to have gone into a trade," says Mr Mallard.

The emphasis, he says, has to change. With trades, he notes, there's "the attraction of earning while you are learning".

Back in Miss Simpson's villa, the builder from heaven couldn't save her from the painter from hell. After agreeing to the $25,000 painting job before Christmas, and saying he'd work over the holiday, the painter disappeared until the break was over. "I'm at the end of my tether now," she says.

AVERAGE HOURLY RATE FOR TRADESMEN

Carpenter $50

Painter $60

Electrician $80

Plumber $85

- Herald on Sunday