A determination on the part of Irish parents and schools that universities provide the best stepping stone to rewarding employment has left key sectors of the country’s economy short of skills, says Billy Hann, Dublin Bus chief executive.
Mr Hann says as the son of a tradesman who nudged him towards third level, he is more familiar with the phenomenon than most. The upshot, he says, is many young people are missing out on good careers to which they might be better suited.
The obvious response is that going to college seems not to have done him any harm. Hann points to his opposite number at Irish Rail, Jim Meade, who started with that company as an apprentice fitter, and says there are always opportunities for progression.
“If you want further education, we will give you further education,” he says. “If you want to go for different jobs in the organisation, we wouldn’t stop you doing that. If you have the competence and skills to be able to become a manager or a supervisor or go into a different part of the business altogether, we would support that.”
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His immediate priority, though, would be getting you in the door as a mechanic.
Because of expanding bus fleets and the shortage of qualified people with the required skills, the company has been hiring mechanics from overseas. Some were recruited from Spain two years ago, and from the Philippines since, with more than 40 arriving from there last year and about 25 expected to be hired this year.
With a view to the longer term, though, the firm has sought to expand its own apprenticeships scheme. The money, he acknowledges, is modest enough to start, “but you are being paid to learn”. Once qualified, the basic pay starts at about €43,000, on top of which there are shift allowances and premiums that add significantly to the salary, plus a range of benefits.
Young people move jobs more than they used to, but the proportion of those who stick with Dublin Bus once they join is pretty high, he says.
It is a message the company will be aiming to sell to potential recruits at the WorldSkills event, a mix of recruitment fair and national championships for the construction, engineering and related sectors in the RDS, which starts on Wednesday and runs until Friday.
Hollie McCabe (24),from Coolock in Dublin, joined as an apprentice mechanic last year, having spent a few years in various retails job after leaving school.
She enjoyed them well enough, she says, “but it wasn’t really for me, because I like to be hands on, learn new things and stuff like that. In retail, you’re doing the same thing every day”.
Her all-girls school, she says, offered little by way of technical or practical subjects, but she developed a liking for working with engines by helping her brother repair motorbikes. Her sister had a stint as a driver with Dublin Bus and encouraged her to apply for an apprenticeship when the company was recruiting last year.
“It was a long process, you have to go through a few tests, interviews ... but it was worth it and I’m in my second year now.”
The company, says Hann, has worked hard to recruit more women but they still make up just 10 per cent of a workforce of more than 4,000 and 3 per cent of craft workers such as mechanics, bodyworkers and electricians.
Almost all her colleagues, McCabe acknowledges, are men and she found the work and environment took some getting used to. “At the start, it was hard,” she says “but with the lads you work with in here, and the training you get, it gets easier all the time.
“You have to have a sense of humour because there’s a lot of banter but they don’t judge me for being a girl. They don’t disrespect me.”
Even before she qualifies, McCabe sees herself broadening her horizons and doing courses in years three and four that might help her progress into management somewhere down the line.
For the moment, though, she is one of the many apprentices across a range of fields whose progress towards qualifying in her trade is being delayed by a lack of capacity in college-based modules of the training which are nothing to do with her employer.
The issue, says Paddy Kavanagh, general secretary of Connect, a union that represents more than 30,000 tradespeople, is linked to inadequate funding and is contributing to skills shortages, not just in transport but in construction and other sectors critical to the economy.
He says estimates provided to the National Economic Dialogue suggested 80,000 more workers are required in the construction sector, if even the infrastructure and other projects already approved are to be successfully completed.
The projection includes an additional 30,000 apprentices on top of the roughly 5,000 entering training for the traditional trades each year at present.
Annual starting salaries, once qualified, average more than €50,000 for electricians and plumbers, he says, higher than for mechanics. Minimum rates in year one of just €15,000, however, remains a barrier to persuading more young people such as McCabe, who are few years out of school and may have more financial commitments, to make the same sort of switch.
“We have no problem with people coming in from the Philippines, or anywhere else, because they are not displacing anyone,” says Kavanagh.
“But we really need to be training more than 10,000 people a year in these trades because the skills are absolutely essential for the future of the economy and we need to do more to address that.”
