Wanted: keen youngsters willing to learn

By SIMON COLLINS

More builders are now looking for apprentices in Auckland than there are young people looking for positions.

The regional manager of the Building and Construction Industry Training Organisation, Bernard Te Paa, said he once kept a list of would-be apprentices for the rare times when builders rang in seeking someone.

Now he has a list of "about a dozen" builders wanting apprentices - and the list of young people wanting apprenticeships is bare.

"As soon as they go on the list they get employment and/or apprenticeships," he said.

"This is the first time ever that we have had this situation of employers ringing us often looking for apprentices.

"We used to get calls about once a quarter if we were lucky. Now we are getting them once a week."

Nationally, the number of modern apprenticeships in building and construction almost doubled in the year to June, from 243 to 536, as the building industry has boomed.

Total traineeships, including workers over the age of 21 who are too old for modern apprenticeships, have increased from 2787 to 3151.

Mr Te Paa said major ongoing projects such as new hospitals, Britomart, the proposed Newmarket "super-mall" and motorway extensions were giving Auckland builders the confidence to take on apprentices.

Kieran Tamatoa, an 18-year-old from Kelston, was one of three new carpentry apprentices signed up this week by Penrose-based Clearwater Construction.

He has been plunged into working 5am to 7pm, six days a week, to complete Westfield's St Luke's shopping mall extension by Christmas. "It's all right. I'm getting paid," he said.

He has started on $8 an hour, or around $672 a week on his current hours, but will be getting $17-$18 an hour by the time he qualifies in three or four years.

His supervisor, Hui Kamariera, said the building industry was now paying the price for not taking on apprentices during the 1990s, before "modern apprenticeships" were brought back in 2000.

"A lot of our guys are in their mid-40s and 50s. There are no young ones around," he said.

"We are now trying to give our company a younger workforce."

Clearwater managing director Wayne Carson said he was "reasonably confident about the future", with projects including St Luke's, the second stage of Newmarket's Broadway mall, the Madison Apartments in Symonds St, Normanby Mews in Mt Wellington and an industrial development at Botany Downs.

"We are acknowledging that there is a real skill shortage in the industry, and I think everyone is aware that there hasn't been much training going on in recent years," he said.

"So we have taken the view that in order to get good people we have to train them ourselves."

Bruce Howat of Apprentice Training NZ, which services a range of industries, said the shortage of apprentices was general.

"We have far more demand for apprentices than we can supply."

He has 50 vacancies for engineering apprentices throughout the country, 30 of them in Auckland.

The Auckland regional co-ordinator of modern apprenticeships at Skill NZ, David McLeod-Jones, said shortages were worse in fast-growing regions such as Nelson and Auckland.

"I was rung by the Baking Industry Training Organisation, who had two companies wanting to hire apprentices. She had rung every school in Auckland and couldn't get anyone," he said.

Wendy Burton, of the Electro Technology Industry Training Organisation, said electricians and electronics companies were having difficulty finding apprentices.

Electrical apprenticeships have more than doubled from 135 to 282 in the past year, and electrical trainee numbers are up 29 per cent to 4771.

Janet Lane of the Motor Industry Training Organisation said motor industry traineeships were up 15 per cent in the past year, to 2985, and the industry was looking for more. But apprentices needed to be "high-calibre", possibly with work experience through the Gateway scheme.

But Robert Brooke, of the Boating Industry Training Organisation, said boating had become so popular that employers could afford to be choosy.

Boating modern apprenticeships have jumped from 63 to 165 in the past year, and Mr Brooke said he got 10 to 20 phone calls a week from parents wanting apprenticeships for their youngsters.

He is giving them a list of boatbuilders and advising them to tell their offspring that if necessary they should offer to work for nothing for a few days.