Career Options
If you build it, they will comeMore than 15,000 high-school and elementary students descended on the National Trade Centre on March 28-30 for the Future Building Show, a hands-on career exhibition sponsored by the Ontario Construction Secretariat. LAUREN BRESLIN |
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 [ 2006-04-05 ] |
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The show was designed to promote careers in construction and the related trades by connecting students with industry professionals. From electricians to plumbers, carpenters and masons, virtually every construction trade was represented, and many tradespeople offered hands-on demonstrations of their crafts.
Students lined up at the various booths to try their hands at the jobs tradespeople perform every day, like brick-laying, pipefitting or electrical work. Jonathan Hayes, 13, especially enjoyed putting nails in drywall, and would consider it as a profession. "I thought it was fun," he said. "I did it twice -- that's how fun I thought it was."
Hayes also enjoyed playing in "the sandbox," where he parked himself at the controls of an excavator simulator to practise digging sand. "This is a good place to see what kind of jobs you might want to do, and to get hands-on experience," he says.
Some students installed tile on a sample floor, while others cut wood with a plunge router or operated a crane using a 3-D simulator.
"The fact that the stuff is hands-on is better than just standing and listening, because no one will engage if it was just listening," says 14-year-old Deanna Soloninka, who says she particularly enjoyed using a jackhammer.
Other booths at the show offered career resources and apprenticeship information. "But the kids are mainly interested in the activities," says Peter Wilson from the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities. "The students won't have any idea what these trades are about until they come and do a few of the things involved in it."
Wilson, who was part of the first Future Building Show back in 1988, emphasized the broad range of opportunities within the trades -- far beyond the physical labour people normally associate with them. "In almost every trade, there's a place for everyone," he says. "Depending on how skilled you are, how smart you are and how much you're willing to upgrade yourself, there is a place for everybody within that trade structure."
Gail Smyth, executive director of Skills Canada - Ontario, says recruitment to the construction field is essential because the trades, in general, suffer from a bad rap. Many students and parents still see these jobs as low-paying, back-breaking work.
"A lot of parents think the trades are okay for someone else's child, but not for theirs," she says. "Parents don't realize that there are tremendous opportunities in the skilled trades. They also don't realize that, with overtime, some tradespeople are making six-figure incomes."
It's true that skilled tradespeople tend to earn higher salaries than the national average for employed Canadians. In construction, wages vary from $27 to $35 an hour.
"Another misconception is that the trades are for dummies, not for bright people," Smyth says. "In fact, you have to be fairly intelligent to go into a skilled trade." Indeed, some trades involve highly sophisticated tools and diagnostic equipment, and most of them require using your brain as much as your hands to solve complex problems.
Part of the mission of the Future Building program is to dispel these myths, and otherwise bring new talent into an industry that faces a looming skills shortage.
"We need to prepare for the next five to 10 years when so many workers will be retiring," Smyth says. "So we really need to encourage students to look at apprenticeships in the skilled trades."
Future Building 2006 was presented by the Ontario Construction Secretariat, in partnership with the Government of Canada and the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities. For more info, visit www.futurebuilding.ca.
- Construction is the second largest industry in North America, but doesn't get the same recognition as the automotive or high-tech sectors.
- The construction industry is one of Ontario's largest employers.
- Ontario's construction industry currently employs more than 300,000 workers and each year more than 3,000 apprentices enter the construction trades.
- Many people who work in the skilled trades earn average to better than average salaries.
- In the construction industry, hourly pay varies from $27 to $35 per hour for various trades.
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