“What the enterprise neighborhood is saying is that we simply do not have sufficient individuals. We simply do not have sufficient carpenters, electricians, heavy responsibility technicians.”
The Alberta authorities is spending $12.4 million that it claims will create almost 2,000 new apprenticeship positions to be unfold over 5 totally different establishments throughout the province.
The brand new positions are slated to go to college students on the Northern Alberta Institute of Expertise in Edmonton, Southern Alberta Institute of Expertise in Calgary, Purple Deer Polytechnic, Lethbridge School, and Keyano School in Fort McMurray.
In an interview with Postmedia, Superior Training Minister Rajan Sawhney mentioned the announcement displays a rising want from employers.
“What the enterprise neighborhood is saying is that we simply don’t have sufficient individuals. We simply don’t have sufficient carpenters, electricians, heavy responsibility technicians,” she mentioned.
“There’s so many alternative roles that must be stuffed within the labour market.”
Sawhney added she expects different establishments past the 5 introduced Monday might come ahead within the coming months to hunt funding.
“This has been an ongoing problem for a minimum of a number of years, and that’s why it’s actually necessary to search out further seats,” she mentioned. “It’s pragmatic. It’s sensible.”
Apprenticeships are coordinated between particular person colleges, college students, and employers and completion is usually obligatory to graduate from a given program.
Apprentices usually get about 10 months of job coaching and are partnered with a mentor throughout that point. The remaining two months are spent within the classroom.
Positions are unfold out throughout 47 packages together with generally identified fields like welding, plumbing, and ironworking, however apprenticeships additionally occur in different occupations like hairstylists and barbers in addition to cooks and bakers.
Apprenticeship positions are usually paid half of a journeyperson’s wage of their first interval, progressing by 10 per cent every interval as much as 80 per cent for a fourth interval.
The federal government says the brand new funding brings the quantity put aside for apprenticeships to $54.4 million for 2023-24.
It acknowledged that there are 53,922 registered apprentices in Alberta, a rise of 19 per cent from the top of 2022, and that the province is residence to 14 per cent of the nation’s apprentices in comparison with representing 12 per cent of Canada’s total labour pressure.
Trades and apprenticeships have been a spotlight of the UCP authorities because it first got here to energy in 2019.
In 2021, it launched Invoice 67, the Expert Trades and Apprenticeship Training Act, designed to develop apprenticeship-style training past conventional expert trades.
That features future plans to introduce trades extra prominently within the Ok-12 faculty system, in response to the minister.
“We have to expose these industries and these are alternatives for teenagers at a youthful age to pique their curiosity,” Sawhney mentioned.