No easy fix to New Zealand's shortage in tradespeople and builders

Tuesday, 1 May 2018

On a cold Monday morning, a young woman picks up a hammer and gets to work, building one of the three houses students work on during their pre-trade programme.

Pania Cassidy has been building little bits and pieces since she was a child and knew she wanted to pursue a career in construction.

Once she finishes her 34-week pre-trade programme with Whitireia Community Polytechnic, near Wellington, she wants to find an apprenticeship and get out into the industry.

On April 30, new construction and engineering facilities were officially opened at the Porirua campus. Interest from potential carpentry students has been strong over the last couple of years - last year saw 1728 students sign up for construction or engineering courses.

READ MORE: NZ needs more than 50,000 construction workers by 2022 to keep up with demand

But while trainees like Cassidy are hard at work, New Zealand is facing a massive shortfall of skilled trades workers over the next four years.

TRAINING IS TRICKY

According to Building and Construction Industry Training Organisation (BCITO) chief executive Warwick Quinn, there's no question New Zealand is looking at a shortage.

'If you look at the forecasts of the amount of work required over the next five years, that's about 50,000 to 60,000 workers. That's all workers from engineers to apprentices to administration.'

He estimates half of those workers will need to be trade-qualified in one way or another.

BCITO saw 11,500 trainees last year, a record high, and about 2500 apprentices qualify through its testing scheme every year.

But on average, it takes three or four years to qualify. It'll be several years before apprentices can start filling the gaps the industry is seeing - and that's if they can find a business to take them on.

Quinn says the industry has seen the shortfall coming and, from a training perspective, they have not trained enough people coming through.

But the problem lay with the fact apprentices couldn't train without work. 'Employers, they're the teachers.'.

Quinn says for the first year or two, it could cost a business about $3000 to train an apprentice.

Ministry of Business, Industry and Employment (MBIE) system strategy and performance manager Anna Clark says two-thirds of tradies were self-employed and of the 60,000 construction firms around the country, about 90 per cent of them had five staff - or fewer.

Taking on an apprentice can look like a financial risk to a small business.

Hutt Gas and Plumbing general manager Colleen Upton  says fewer  than 20 per cent of trade businesses take on apprentices.

'For the first couple of years, it often costs you money.[But] that's how we've grown our business, by bringing apprentices on.'

Apprentices coming into the trade were still learning the ropes and it wasn't uncommon for them to make mistakes, sometimes costly. On top of that, a qualified tradie would have to oversee an apprentice, taking up more precious time.

Carpentry apprentices take around four years to train while plumbing apprentices can take five years or more.

Quinn says a more aligned training system was needed and more structured to how construction now works. Construction has become more specialised over the last few years.'

He points to window installation as an example. Traditionally, being qualified to install windows came under a carpentry qualification. But as the industry changed, firms started specialising in particular areas such as window installation.

Quinn is pushing for more 'micro credentials' to be adopted, certifying people in specific areas. Trials have been run around the country and he hoped to roll it out on a larger scale in mid-2018.

BOOM AND BUST

When the economy goes bust, so does work for the tradies.

When the global financial crisis hit in 2008, the construction industry was hit right along with it, causing workers to drop out and set the industry up for a shortage when the economy - and building projects - picked up again.

MBIE officials pinpointed a 'boom and bust' cycle in the construction industry as an underlying cause for a shortage.

'The uncertainty caused by boom and bust has contributed to low investment in skills and training by the sector,' Clark says.

New Zealand Certified Builders chief executive Grant Florence says during a recession members saw work in the industry drop off.

'During a down time, lots of people leave the industry and the industry doesn't necessarily keep people employed or bring in new apprentices. Then we have a growth cycle, like now, and you get a shortage.'

Across the construction industry in 2010, 14,900 workers left as work dried up. As the economy started growing again and projects like the Christchurch rebuild and the housing boom picked up, the workers started coming back.

But they can't keep up with the demand to build - Florence says some members of NZCB were booked up until mid-2019.

Clark says the nationwide increase in construction investment was expected to peak at over $42 billion in 2020.

Demand for construction-related occupations is expected to last until at least the end of 2022.

She says demand for those jobs was expected to rise 11 per cent between 2016 and 2022, settling on a figure of 56,000 workers needed in the industry by then.

'The Minister for Building and Construction Jenny Salesa, has made clear one of her priorities is addressing the shortage of skilled construction workers,' Clark says.

The construction industry is changing and now includes new methods such as off-site construction.

Salesa was keen to ensure New Zealand had a construction force for the future and had established a  ministerial group  to look at it, she said.

MBIE, government agencies and key stakeholders will work together to develop a cross-agency government action plan.

'Government alone cannot address the skills gap, and the sector has an important role to play in addressing this as well,' she says.

MISSING OUT HALF THE POPULATION

While some companies are struggling to keep up with jobs, some in the industry are saying half the population isn't getting a 'fair crack' at trades.

Figures from Statistics New Zealand show only 2 per cent of all construction workers are women.

Nikita Ward took up a plumbing apprenticeship at Hutt City Gas and Plumbing in 2015 and, according to Upton, she is one of the only 22 female plumbers and apprentices nationwide.

A report from NZ Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers showed that in 2017, there were around 14,500 registered plumbers around the country.

'We've got a shortage in the [plumbing] industry and 50 per cent of the population aren't getting a crack at it,' Upton said.

After Ward finished her pre-trade training several years ago, she started looking for an apprentice position.

She called around all the plumbing and gasfitting businesses she could find on the Kāpiti Coast where she lived, but either got no reply or was told they weren't looking for apprentices.

Hutt Gas and Plumbing took her on and the company now employs three of the 22 female plumbers and apprentices nationwide.

Ward's male workmates accepted her and the other two women easily but  some customers found it harder seeing a woman working in a trade.

'Some people are like 'you're a woman you shouldn't be doing this kind of thing, get back in the kitchen'. And you feel like saying 'Well, I do work in the kitchen, I'm just fixing stuff, not making you a sandwich',' Ward says.

At high school Ward felt pushed into taking the university route and said she was never really told trades were an option.

Training organisation Skills chief executive Garry Fissenden said at the end of 2017 just 2 per cent of trainees who signed up were women, but that was up from 1 per cent the year before. 

'Eighty per cent chose electrical, 17 per cent plumbing, gasfitting and drainlaying, while 3 per cent went into roofing,' he says.

IMMIGRATION A 'SHORT-TERM SOLUTION'

In December  2017 Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway announced seven construction-related occupations were added to the immediate skills shortage list.

At the same time, the Government took its first steps on the Kiwibuild programme, a project aiming to build 100,000 affordable homes over the next decade.

'The construction industry needs skilled workers to achieve this,' Lees-Galloway said.

'The Government will always ensure that where a genuine skill gap exists our immigration system will support employers to get the people they need.'

In the current financial year so far, the number of visas approved for trade and technician jobs outnumbered professional visas.

Figures from Immigration New Zealand show nearly 16,500 technician and trades visas were issued compared to around 13,700 professional visas. This was the first time trades visas outnumbered professional visas in the last decade at least.

Those numbers came as no surprise to those in the industry leaders.

Both NZCB and BCITO representatives said immigration was a way of 'filling the gaps' during a shortage of workers.

'We can't fill [a shortage] from here so we have to look overseas,' Florence says.

Immigration is one of the obvious short-term fixes for a shortage. 

'There is no magic bullet. There's potentially minor levers you can pull but there's really nothing that will solve it unless, over time, we get away from this boom-bust cycle.

'I can see we're going to have to live with the shortage for a time.'