Big apprentice intakes pending in heavy engineering

Press, 17 April 1980, Page 2

Big apprentice intakes pending in heavy engineering

PA Wellington Big apprentice intakes are pending in heavy engineering arid related industries so that skilled tradesmen can be released for high-cost energy developments. The first 20-week training course for about 400 future tradesmen is expected to be set up in August, and will be followed by more courses to build the skilled work-force to the strength needed to cope with future energyrelated projects. It is believed that the plan by the Consultative Committee on Employment has been kept confidential, but that it has Cabinet approval. The scheme is expected to reduce heavily the pool of unemployed school - leavers and to open up opportunities for young people who have continued their schooling because of lack of employment opportunities. Plans are for skilled welders, fitters, boilermakers, and other tradesmen to be released for energy construction work.

Their jobs will be taken by trainees from the apprentice courses, who when their own skills develop could become available for development projects. Work has already started on extensions to the Marsden Point refinery, and the first major development, the Petcocorp methanol plant in Taranaki, is likely to start construction within a year. Also mooted are the Tara* naki urea plant; steel mining expansion, and aluminium, cement, nickel and paper pulp and power developments in both the North and South Islands. The apprentice scheme by the Consultative Committee on Employment, which comprises Federation of Labour and Employers’ Federation representatives and top officials of some Government departments, could founder in only one area — cost. Payment for trainees is one of the questions that might be under study by the Treasury apart from the general financing of the scheme.