By Josh McJannett
The only serious consideration I ever gave to a career in the skilled trades faded a few weeks after my crowning shop class achievement in Grade 7 when I made an aluminium cookie sheet for my Mom.
We still use the cookie sheet, but that bent piece of metal was as close as I’ve ever come to working with my hands.
Like many Ontario high school students, university was the next logical step for me after graduation. Teachers, parents and guidance counsellors all seemed to agree on the need for an academic, post-secondary education.
Applying for an undergraduate degree felt like accepted wisdom and despite thinking hard about future career options, working as a plumber or an electrician wasn’t even in the cards.
With a growing skilled-trade worker shortage that could result in Canada being short a million workers by 2020, I should have thought twice about perfecting my shop skills and pursued a career in the trades.
Canadian trades’ businesses have identified the skilled trades shortage as a growing and pressing concern. Industry leaders and professional associations are making an impassioned plea to develop strategies to attract new workers and their campaigns are aimed squarely at Canadian youth.
Employers are placing a growing premium on young, capable skilled workers entering the field. While a general arts degree is of increasingly debatable value when it comes to finding gainful employment in Canada, companies are working overtime to bring foreign workers from Europe, South Asia and elsewhere to fill desperately-needed trade jobs our own graduates are no longer accepting.
A major problem is the widespread perception among Canadians that a career in the trades leads to a blue-collar lifestyle without hope for professional development or long-term success. Despite repeated and long-standing warning signs, Canada has largely ignored the growing demand for skilled workers. It has also failed to present the trades as a legitimate career path.
The structure of Ontario’s high school curriculum has contributed to this problem by streaming university-bound students into “academic” courses, leaving a minority in less challenging “applied” classes for students bound for college and the trades.
This segregation leads many of the brightest students to view a career in the trades with trepidation and implies that academic performers should focus their efforts elsewhere.
Studies have shown that students have significantly less knowledge about a career path to jobs in the skilled trades than their parents and that attitudes around these choices begin to cement in Grades 9 and 10.
Government, parents, teachers and guidance counsellors all have a responsibility to ensure students have accurate information about these options so they can make informed decisions about a career in the skilled trades.
Without real action at all levels to change perceptions and promote the trades, Canada is destined to find itself with a surplus of under-employed, university-educated workers lamenting a Grade 7 cookie sheet as their missed opportunity for success.