Labour shortage answered with tax breaks

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Citing a "a serious shortage of tradespeople" in Canada, the federal government has proposed tax incentives for employers who take on apprentices, and grants for individuals who sign on for skilled trades training in its new budget.

"The difficulty Canadian employers are having finding skilled tradespeople is becoming an impediment to economic growth," the government said in its budget documents. "Meanwhile, many young Canadians find themselves in low-paying work, and are either not encouraged to consider the trades or are unable to do so because of financial barriers." To shed even more light on an apparently dire situation, Alberta and B.C. watering down cross boarder restrictions for workers. This plan will be in effect in 1997.

  These announcement couldn’t come at a better time for the British Columbian Road Builders and Heavy Construction Association.

  Association spokesman Kent Orrick bielves there will be a resurgence by young workers to enter the trades, making it much easier for employers.

After decades of fighting negative perceptions -- some justified -- about the hard work and boom-and-bust nature of employment in construction and other heavy-industry sectors, Mr. Orrock says there has never been a better time to embark on a career in the trades.

"I tell people they're getting in at a time when, if they so choose, they will definitely be able to [work until they] retire in this industry," says Mr. Orrock, who works out of Burnaby, B.C.

The federal budget, relased several weeks ago, contains a measure to give employers tax credits of up to $2,000 a year for the first two years that they employ and train eligible apprentices, and also proposes to give cash grants of $1,000 a year to eligible apprentices in the first two years of their training.

"It is expected that about 100,000 apprentices will benefit as a result of the new grant and tax credit," the government projects.

However, even without the federal incentives, industry associations and community colleges have stepped up their efforts to recruit and train the next generation of trades people.

The Northern Alberta Institute of Technology, for instance, is now training 13,500 apprentices a year in 45 trades to feed the region's voracious demand for skilled labour and, in some high-demand fields, is considering adding second and third teaching shifts, says institute president Sam Shaw.

For the past couple of decades, parents and teachers have strongly encouraged students to go to university, and opportunities in the trades have been overlooked, Orrock says. However, this is gradually changing, in part because of industry association campaigns and more sophisticated labour market projections, career specialists say.

It's a common misconception that the impending retirements of baby boomers will open up jobs in all fields and across all sectors, says Ian Cullwick, national human capital practice leader with Toronto-based managing consulting firm Deloitte.

"The reality is that the most pronounced [recruitment] challenges are going to be for skilled trades and apprenticeships on the one hand, and executive management talent on the other," he says.

With trades shortages already affecting some sectors, training opportunities are opening up across the country as employers start to take more responsibility for cultivating talent, Mr. Cullwick says.

The B. C. Road Builders and Heavy Industry Association, for example, has developed and launched a new program combining classroom training with on-the-job instruction to support a number of highway and port-building megaprojects currently in the works. The first stage of the program, which is being paid for by industry, is designed to teach the basics of road building and heavy construction, Mr. Orrock says.

"The aim is to give them a really good essential knowledge about the equipment that's going to be used and how to maintain that equipment," he says. "They'll also be taught the basics of civil engineering, so they'll know about grades, aggregates and environmental issues."

From there, he says, the students can move on to apprenticeships in asphalt paving or specialized construction jobs, such as blasting and rock scaling. Or they can specialize in the operation of heavy equipment -- backhoes, excavators, bulldozers, graders and 50-ton trucks.

Ottawa's incentives do not yet cover all trades, although the Finance Minister said in his budget speech that he was willing to expand the scope of the program if employers can demonstrate a need.