- UK faces serious shortage of tradespeople as prices rise
and fewer take up apprenticeships...
- Anyone who finds themselves in need of a plumber over
this holiday period faces trouble. The first hurdle is to find someone
available for emergency unblocking of toilets or fixing boilers. For, despite
scores of advertisements in the Yellow Pages offering a 365-day service,
most plumbers are refusing all jobs until well into the new year.
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- There is worse to come: anyone lucky enough to find a
tradesman to come to the house had better be ready for a financial shock.
Labour charges of up to £90 an hour (or part of an hour) - plus parts,
plus VAT - have been quoted during Christmas week to hapless householders.
One Surrey businesswoman who needed emergency repairs at her premises was
landed with a bill of more than £450 for fewer than two hours' work.
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- Britain is facing a serious shortage of tradespeople
- not just plumbers, but bricklayers, and other related skills. Yet an
experienced plumber earns an average of £30,000 a year, while some
can make up to £50,000 - putting them on a par with GPs.
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- Forecasts from the Construction Industry Training Board
estimate that Britain needs to train 380,000 building workers between now
and 2006.
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- This covers all occupations working in the construction
sector: managers, professionals, and clerical staff, as well as skilled
trades such as electricians and bricklayers.
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- Within this overall figure, the CITB estimates 6,000
plumbers need to be trained each year.
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- But, in the last academic year, only around 2,200 young
people took up modern apprenticeships as plumbers, while just under 11,000
became construction apprentices.
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- Behind this scarcity of trainees lies a further problem
for industry; too many young people leave school without basic skills in
reading and mathematics.
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- Others, who in the past might have become plumbers or
plasterers, are being encouraged by the government to go to university.
Labour has promised to increase the proportion of youngsters going on to
higher education.
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- This is misguided, believes one former teacher who retrained
as a plumber. Jo Thornley, 55, from Ilkley in West Yorkshire, set up her
plumbing business in 1994. Back when she was still a teacher and training
part-time for her career switch, she recalls a colleague sneering at the
trade.
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- "In my last teaching job, the deputy head was talking
about his son, and said he didn't think he would be anything better than
a plumber - but now he is going to university." She knows better:
"If he had got trained as a plumber, he would have a job for life.
If he did a degree in something like media studies, he might end up on
the dole."
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- Margaret Murray, head of the learning and skills group
at the Confederation of British Industry, said: "For business, the
priority is getting the basics right. We back the government focus on literacy
and numeracy. We have got quite a long way to go on that. Unless the basics
are there, employers are building on sand."
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- The CBI wants to encourage stronger links between schools
and businesses.
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- Mrs Murray speaks of teachers having the time to go and
do a work placement in the construction industry. "Think of a headteacher
going along when they were building the Millennium bridge or the Channel
tunnel."
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- At the CBI's annual conference in November, the education
secretary, Charles Clarke, unveiled an initiative to turn around what he
described as Britain's "snobbish" attitude to vocational skills.
"Enterprise days" are planned in secondary schools, when tradespeople
will go into the classroom to talk about the advantages of their work.
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- Ministers believe skilled manual jobs do not command
enough respect in Britain. "Other countries, such as Germany, not
only have a higher regard for vocational qualifications, they have a much
higher level of skills and higher productivity," a Department of Trade
and Industry spokesman said.
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- Lack of technicians
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- "We have an excellent record on higher education,
but in terms of basic and vocational skills there is much we need to do,"
the spokesman added. "Business is increasingly worried about the lack
of good technicians."
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- There are some signs of hope. While modern apprenticeships
appear to be out of favour, one of the country's oldest qualifications
is enjoying a renaissance.
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- The number of people taking City & Guilds vocational
qualifications in plumbing rose in the last academic year from around 7,000
to nearly 11,000.
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- The numbers taking bricklaying courses also increased.
The students were not just school-leavers but significant numbers of older
career-switchers.
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- Chris Humphries, director-general of City & Guilds,
said: "We know exactly what was behind it. If you go and talk to the
kids in colleges, they know what the salaries are. It's the market starting
to work. They have got the message that there is a big opportunity for
them."
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- Boys studying plumbing still outnumbered girls by 100
to one. When Mrs Thornley did her plumbing course, she was the only woman
in the class.
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- Ministers think this lack of female trainees harms British
industry. There is certainly demand for female trades-people among customers.
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- Mrs Thornley finds that "quite a few of the elderly
women, and young women with children," are keener to see her than
a male stranger.
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- More female recruits might help shake up a few complacent
tradesmen too. A recent survey found that women were routinely charged
more than men by plumbers, builders, electricians, and locksmiths.
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- Just over one in five women who call out tradesmen for
simple emergency jobs are charged more, the research for the insurance
firm AXA found.
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- In the worst case, a plumber in Glasgow quoted a female
caller £40 per hour - 60% more than he had quoted a male caller.
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- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2002
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- http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,866410,00.html
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