“New Zealand auto industry employers need to understand that the employment market is changing rapidly,” says Phillips.
“The government’s position is that youngsters should be offered apprenticeships, rather than the industry filling vacancies with migrants from overseas.
“The auto industry has been put on notice that it’s time to start training more apprentices.”
Phillips points out that there were 375 automotive trade vacancies on Trade Me in February 2012. A year later this had risen to 429 vacancies, before climbing to 479 a week later. This is the largest number of vacancies ever.
“Automotive apprentices were taken off the ‘essential skills’ list in December. It would be an absolute disaster if diesel apprenticeships were to follow suit,” explains Phillips.
“The Christchurch re-build means that the focus is on finding more apprentices in trades necessary for this – carpentry and plumbing, for instance. The auto industry has to compete with this,” says Phillips.
“Employers should start – within the limits they have the capacity to do so – taking on more apprentices.”
The government’s ‘re-boot’ initiative offers a $1000 subsidy to both employers and apprentices who sign apprenticeship agreements, from now on, payable after 90 days in employment and training.
This subsidy is doubled to $2000 if the apprenticeship is in a ‘priority trade’.
See HERE for previous story: ‘Subsidies for apprenticeships brought forward’.
