Expansion in the Alberta oilsands, 2010 Vancouver Olympics, new uranium mines, massive hydroelectric dam fuelling growth
At the epicentre of a looming Western Canada building boom, Finning Canada won’t have to worry about a shortage of business opportunities in the next few years. It may, however, face a shortage of workers.
Finning, which sells and services Caterpillar-brand heavy equipment, needs to find about 300 heavy-equipment technicians by 2007 due to retirements and new contracts arising from the many “mega” projects already underway or just over the horizon in Western Canada. (Finning currently has about 830 heavy-equipment technicians.)
The ongoing expansion in the Alberta oilsands, preparation for the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, the development of two new uranium mines in northern Saskatchewan and Manitoba Hydro’s Wuskwatim dam project will create hundreds of thousands of jobs.
The Olympics alone is projected to spur $13 billion in construction work and 132,000 jobs.
“We are trying to find skilled people for the future but the question is: How do we attract them to the industry?” says Ray Jeffery, manager of learning and development for Edmonton-based Finning.
One solution was to sign a unique partnership with the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT), whereby the Edmonton college will deliver a heavy-equipment technician training program designed by Caterpillar.
Students in ThinkBIG, a five-semester, two-year program, pay $1,775 per semester but are entitled to as much as $10,000 in bursaries from Finning upon successful completion of the program. In return, Finning ensures a steady stream of highly trained workers commencing in the spring of 2005 when the first class of 24 students completes the program.
Graduates from most heavy-equipment programs are skilled but only in a generic way, says Jeffery. They are trained in all types of heavy equipment, but Finning needs people to come into the job already trained on Caterpillar machines, he says. “We need a portion to come in from a more specialized program so that they can hit the ground running.”
By the end of the program each student will have completed all of the in-class training necessary for the Heavy Equipment Technician trade in Alberta and be ready for a job at Finning. There, they will be able to complete the hours necessary to complete their appreniship.
The cost to the company will be high initially, but it will be more than worth it down the road to have a steady stream of workers capable of working on Caterpillar machinery after just two years of training instead of the usual four years, says Jeffery.
A recent survey of 76 industry associations by the Canada West Foundation (CWF) found many industries (not just those directly tied to construction or the building boom) expect there to be at least some labour shortages between 2005 and 2010 (almost one-half expect shortages to be severe).
Ensuring that the skilled labour supply meets the demand requires strategies to make better use of immigrants and Aboriginal peoples, and improving labour mobility by making it easier for skilled trades-people to move from province to province, says Ben Brunnen, a policy analyst for the CWF.
But it will also require changes to the way post-secondary schools educate students to better meet the needs of businesses, he says.
“One of the arguments that the industry associations brought up is that the grads from post-secondary programs simply didn’t have the skills to work in the industries they are in,” he says.
The evidence suggests many westerners feel the post-secondary system is flawed in a number of ways, states the report, “Willing and Able: The Problem of Skills Shortages in Western Canada.” (In another survey of 4,000 westerners by the CWF, just 24.6 per cent of respondents said post-secondary graduates are well-prepared for the job market.)
To ward off skills shortages, employers and post-secondary schools need to work together to ensure enough of the right kinds of graduates are being delivered into the workforce, says Brunnen.
There will be a huge demand for skilled labour in the West, says Sam Shaw, president of NAIT. To meet that demand, employers, learning institutions and governments need to work together and be more creative in coming up with ways of delivering training.
The ThinkBIG program is a good example of how employers and education institutions can work together. Employers need to do what Finning has done, but governments, provincial and federal, also need to do more to invest in skills training, he says.
Colleges are ideally suited to provide more highly practical just-in-time training by adapting programs to meet employers’ needs but also by delivering training on-site, through the Internet and even through mobile education centres, which NAIT is about to introduce.
But delivering those kinds of training services will in many cases require significant new capital investments. This is where Ottawa needs to step up to the plate and deliver, says Shaw. Although training and education is a provincial responsibility, there is nothing stopping the federal government from making greater capital investments that will enable the colleges to deliver cutting-edge training, he said.
Though the program is less than a year old, a lot of other companies and businesses have expressed interest in Finning’s partnership program with NAIT because they are facing similar staffing challenges, says Jeffery.
“Industry is saying if we need to fill these gaps we can’t wait for the government or the (learning) institutions to do it for us. We have to get in there and help.”
Finning, which sells and services Caterpillar-brand heavy equipment, needs to find about 300 heavy-equipment technicians by 2007 due to retirements and new contracts arising from the many “mega” projects already underway or just over the horizon in Western Canada. (Finning currently has about 830 heavy-equipment technicians.)
The ongoing expansion in the Alberta oilsands, preparation for the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, the development of two new uranium mines in northern Saskatchewan and Manitoba Hydro’s Wuskwatim dam project will create hundreds of thousands of jobs.
The Olympics alone is projected to spur $13 billion in construction work and 132,000 jobs.
“We are trying to find skilled people for the future but the question is: How do we attract them to the industry?” says Ray Jeffery, manager of learning and development for Edmonton-based Finning.
One solution was to sign a unique partnership with the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT), whereby the Edmonton college will deliver a heavy-equipment technician training program designed by Caterpillar.
Students in ThinkBIG, a five-semester, two-year program, pay $1,775 per semester but are entitled to as much as $10,000 in bursaries from Finning upon successful completion of the program. In return, Finning ensures a steady stream of highly trained workers commencing in the spring of 2005 when the first class of 24 students completes the program.
Graduates from most heavy-equipment programs are skilled but only in a generic way, says Jeffery. They are trained in all types of heavy equipment, but Finning needs people to come into the job already trained on Caterpillar machines, he says. “We need a portion to come in from a more specialized program so that they can hit the ground running.”
By the end of the program each student will have completed all of the in-class training necessary for the Heavy Equipment Technician trade in Alberta and be ready for a job at Finning. There, they will be able to complete the hours necessary to complete their appreniship.
The cost to the company will be high initially, but it will be more than worth it down the road to have a steady stream of workers capable of working on Caterpillar machinery after just two years of training instead of the usual four years, says Jeffery.
A recent survey of 76 industry associations by the Canada West Foundation (CWF) found many industries (not just those directly tied to construction or the building boom) expect there to be at least some labour shortages between 2005 and 2010 (almost one-half expect shortages to be severe).
Ensuring that the skilled labour supply meets the demand requires strategies to make better use of immigrants and Aboriginal peoples, and improving labour mobility by making it easier for skilled trades-people to move from province to province, says Ben Brunnen, a policy analyst for the CWF.
But it will also require changes to the way post-secondary schools educate students to better meet the needs of businesses, he says.
“One of the arguments that the industry associations brought up is that the grads from post-secondary programs simply didn’t have the skills to work in the industries they are in,” he says.
The evidence suggests many westerners feel the post-secondary system is flawed in a number of ways, states the report, “Willing and Able: The Problem of Skills Shortages in Western Canada.” (In another survey of 4,000 westerners by the CWF, just 24.6 per cent of respondents said post-secondary graduates are well-prepared for the job market.)
To ward off skills shortages, employers and post-secondary schools need to work together to ensure enough of the right kinds of graduates are being delivered into the workforce, says Brunnen.
There will be a huge demand for skilled labour in the West, says Sam Shaw, president of NAIT. To meet that demand, employers, learning institutions and governments need to work together and be more creative in coming up with ways of delivering training.
The ThinkBIG program is a good example of how employers and education institutions can work together. Employers need to do what Finning has done, but governments, provincial and federal, also need to do more to invest in skills training, he says.
Colleges are ideally suited to provide more highly practical just-in-time training by adapting programs to meet employers’ needs but also by delivering training on-site, through the Internet and even through mobile education centres, which NAIT is about to introduce.
But delivering those kinds of training services will in many cases require significant new capital investments. This is where Ottawa needs to step up to the plate and deliver, says Shaw. Although training and education is a provincial responsibility, there is nothing stopping the federal government from making greater capital investments that will enable the colleges to deliver cutting-edge training, he said.
Though the program is less than a year old, a lot of other companies and businesses have expressed interest in Finning’s partnership program with NAIT because they are facing similar staffing challenges, says Jeffery.
“Industry is saying if we need to fill these gaps we can’t wait for the government or the (learning) institutions to do it for us. We have to get in there and help.”
