Career Options

Apprenticeships: Careers you can build on

If you want to earn an extra million dollars over the course of your career, skip the degree programs at college and university and learn a skilled trade.

DAVID CHILTON


[ 2006-06-07 ]

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That was the message Chris Bentley, Ontario's Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities, brought to students and instructors at Technology in the City at George Brown College May 18.

Apart from all that extra money, there couldn't be a better time than now for anyone interested in learning a skilled trade. A study by the Ontario Chamber of Commerce found that manufacturers will need to fill 400,000 skilled jobs in the next 10 years. And, the study shows, in the next 15 years some 52% of all the skilled tradesmen and women in Ontario will retire.

SHOWCASES CAREERS

Technology in the City is an annual event at George Brown that showcases careers for high school and other students. At this year's event, the fifth in the series, the spotlight shone on apprenticeships. In an Ontario government-supported pilot project the college runs a new co-op apprenticeship program that allows apprentices to earn a diploma in their chosen trade while completing their in-school training; further, and in contrast to the traditional approach to skilled trades, George Brown finds the employer for the student.


Tom Stephenson, co-ordinator of the Building Renovation program at George Brown, said at panel discussion during Tech in the City, he has taken two apprenticeship programs at George Brown. The first was carpentry; the second was brick and stone masonry.

Apprenticeship training taught him a lot of discipline, Stephenson said. "The first couple of years you're a gofer. You run around. You do some mundane tasks, but slowly, by observing, by modelling (yourself) after others you get to apply (what you learn). You get very, very proud of the things that you have built and very, very proud of the things that you have accomplished."

As a way to encourage more employers to hire and train apprentices, Queen's Park has introduced the Apprenticeship Training Tax Credit for certain skilled trades in construction, industrial, manufacturing and motive power as well as others in the service sector. The maximum tax credit is $5,000 a year and eligible apprentices must be hired before Jan. 1, 2008.

There's also a $2,000 bonus available to employers that hire a former dropout who's interested in learning a trade. The dropouts, who must be under 25, are themselves eligible for a $1,000 signing bonus if they complete the academic upgrading necessary to register as an apprentice.

One apprentice who's neither a dropout nor a George Brown student is Amanda Lavadan. She finishes her three-year industrial wiring apprenticeship at Humber College this year and is still only 20.

Lavadan spent the first two years of her apprenticeship at the Magna Technical Training Centre in Brampton, attending Humber one day a week. In her third year, Lavadan spent 10 weeks at Humber and worked at Magna Powertrain in Concord full time the rest of the year.

"With my trade you can go off in any direction you want," said Lavadan, noting Magna's plants overseas. She'll write her European and Ontario qualifying licence exams later this year, and as a recognized industrial wiring specialist -- robotics, troubleshooting, machine maintenance and so on -- will make good money, more than $20 an hour at Magna Powertrain where she has a job already lined up.



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