‘Increasing costs might stop apprenticeships’

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33778, 26 February 1975, Page 7

‘Increasing costs might stop apprenticeships’

(N Z. Press Association) WANGANUI,

February 24

Rising costs might eventually cause employers to cease training apprentices, a delegate told the Society of Master Plumbers annual conference in Wanganui today.

Mr J. Wainwright, of Wellington, said: “The Govern- : ment bears the cost of train-, ing professional people in. the universities, yet it bears! only a small portion of the: cost of trade training. “We bring a fully-qualified tradesman from overseas at! a cost of something like $7OO a head, and the community as a whole meets the burden of housing him and the cost of providing social! services and education for him family. ‘NOT WORTH IT’ “As things stand at present, it is cheaper for an, employer to pay this sort of' money for a fully-qualified journeyman than it is toi train an apprentice, yet in the long run this approach! will be to the detriment of' the whole community. “Surely, it is much better! tc tiain local people yet the! cost of apprentices is rising! so high and so fast that the' stage has nearly been! reached where it is simply : not worth while for anj employer to bother.” Mr Wainwright was speaking to a remit from the Hutt Valley Master Plumbers’ Association which suggested that steps be taken to reduce the cost of employing apprentices by getting increased productive time or obtaining subsidies for their wages, or both. The remit was carried. An explanatory note to the remit said the cost of three weeks annual leave, statutory holidays, sick pay, block-course training, accident compensation levy, compulsory superannuation, and unproductive time meant that an apprentice! was productive for an| equivalent of only 180 days; of the 260 days a year of! his first year of employ-! ment. Mr D. H Keenan, of j Auckland, said there should: he some form of pre-trade: t raining before apprentices I

entered the industry. By thismeans a young man could be more readily productive upon staining work. 50 P.C. SURCHARGE Expressed in other terms, this meant that a surcharge of more than 50 per cent was necessary on the basic hourly apprentice wage just to cover these costs — and this did not take into account the cost of any of' the other fixed overheads of a normal business such as premises, vehicles, tools, ! equipment and adminis-! tration. In addition, the remit said, there was a substantial addi-i tional cost incurred in the' unproductive time of the! journeyman responsible for! training the apprentice. These costs were likely to I rise further with inflation! and would increasingly dis-! courage employers from tak-i

ing on apprentices, the remit said. The president of the society, Mr E, C. Shaw, of Mosgiel, said in his opening address to the conference that the shortage of plumbers was of considerable concern, and that no alleviation was in sight. The industry had instituted a one-for-one quota system for apprentices (one apprentice per journeyman) and some employers had met the challenge of this quota. But many had not, and it could only be assumed that increased costs acted as a disincentive to the training of apprentices. He suggested that all i employers of journeymen i plumbers should be levied to provide a subsidy of some ;form to those employers who were “sacrificing their profits by training plumbers I for tomorrow.”