CAMPAIGN Mapping the skills gap


n By Hajera Blagg


Skills that pay the bills


Unite’s Electrical, Mechanical and Engineering Construction Combine (EMEC) is embarking on a new campaign to tackle a growing skills gap by pushing for more apprenticeships in the sector.


Called It’s the Skills that Pay the Bills, the campaign has begun with a survey to gain an understanding of existing apprentices in sites across the country to discover where precisely skills gaps lie.


Unite national officer for construction Jason Poulter explained why it was so worrying that so many engineering construction employers are turning away from apprenticeships.


“Many employers are now contemplating plugging their skills gaps through utilising non-UK labour and they’re also discussing deskilling trades,” he said.


The problem with both approaches is that they’re a short-term sticking plaster for a problem which requires a long- term solution, Jason noted.


More concerning would be the systematic ‘de-skilling’ of trades, which


involves breaking a skilled trade into ‘modular tasks’. For example, instead of employing trained pipefitters, employers seek workers who can only do part of the job, such as tightening flanges.


This gives employers an excuse to pay workers less; it also makes it that much easier to create a ‘fire-and-rehire’ culture in the workplace.


Trades de-skilling also has wider implications for the future of many industries.


“Having a trade means you’ve got mobility – you can move from site to site no matter what the site is,” Jason explained. “If you’re a steel erector at an oil refinery, you can quite easily move into green power because you’ve got all the skills inherent in that trade – it’s not specific to an oil refinery. De-skilling trades will have a direct impact on a just transition to net zero.”


The only sustainable answer to all these problems is through apprenticeships, Jason notes. This is why the campaign’s survey is so important.


“I hear time and again purely anecdotal evidence that young people don’t want


Unite is urging all members in engineering construction to take the survey, accessible via QR code here.


Take our survey


to do construction apprenticeships – that all they want to be is social media influencers, which is nonsense.”


Jason noted that JTL, a leading electrical apprenticeship provider, has just taken on roughly 2,000 apprentices in an academic year when almost 19,000 applied.


“That’s around 17,000 young people who want an advanced craft apprenticeship who are missing out,” Jason said. “It blows a hole in the argument that ‘kids these days’ don’t want to go into construction. With our survey, we’ll have hard data to show employers the truth – that there’s huge demand for apprenticeships that are desperately needed to plug a skills gap that will only get bigger and bigger.”


TAKE THE SURVEY NOW


19 unite buildingWORKER Autumn 2024


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