Yahoo Finance Builder says young apprentices copping low wages need to harden up: 'Can't yell at them'
Scott Challen believes the 'new generation' of tradespeople needs to push through to reap the rewards down the track.
Apprentice tradies have been told to push through low wages during training and keep honing their craft as Australia faces a massive shortage in numbers.
As many struggle with the cost-of-living crisis, some first-year apprentices are on salaries below minimum wage and even qualified tradies say the pay isn’t worth it.
More than 50,000 tradies and apprentices have quit or dropped out since 2022 and an extra 90,000 construction workers are needed in the next few months to ensure the government stays on track to deliver a promised 1.2 million homes in half a decade.
Are you struggling during your apprenticeship? Email stew.perrie@yahooinc.com
Veteran builder Scott Challen told Yahoo Finance there were many reasons the industry had seen such a massive exodus, but he said these young workers needed to harden up.
“[It’s] a different generation that kids are brought up a different way with a different outlook on things,” he said.
“You can't yell at these apprentices. You can't say, 'Hurry the f**k up … I'm standing up a ladder and I need you to get your s**t together'. You can't talk to them like that. You've got to check in with them constantly [and] check their feelings.”
Challen, who has been in the industry for 15 years and is the CEO of building and home-improvement company The QHI Group, said many of these young apprentices hadn’t played footy on the weekend or climbed trees. He reckons this contributes to their professional outlook.
He said not only were wannabe tradies “distracted” by a lot more technology than was available back in his day, but they also hadn’t been told about the ‘when the going gets tough, the tough get going’ mentality.
“A lot of people haven't had a male mentor figure around them to teach them to push through when it gets tough,” Challen told Yahoo Finance. “So they buckle and crumble. Your apprenticeships really now are about mentor and guiding these kids as best you can so that they don't quit.”
‘National disaster’
The veteran builder has warned the industry is facing a “perfect storm” at the moment due to low tradie numbers and increased red tape from local councils.
“Those [Baby] Boomer builders that were in the business, they’ve all pulled the pin and left. So those guys are out, they’ve all retired,” he said.
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“The older Gen Xs that were builders, they went, ‘You know what, this is really difficult to make a living right now because supply chains are stretched and there's no labour available’.
"There's only 238,000 apprentices in the whole country and we lost 50,000 in 12 months.
“That's a national disaster.
"We're only seeing the tip of the iceberg right now. This is the Titanic and we are on a collision course … the future is bleak, really bleak.”
Apprenticeships can be tough, but they can also pay off massively
Melbourne woman Ashley Belteky was told she was wasting her potential when she applied for an apprenticeship after finishing high school.
It was a tough slog when the now-qualified diesel mechanic first started. She was only earning around $12 an hour, but she stuck to her guns and kept going.
“You’re much better off financially for doing four years in an apprenticeship than four years at a university,” Belteky told Yahoo Finance.
“I’ve been earning more than all of my peers who went to university pretty much since I left school. Even now, where they’ve got degrees and I’m qualified, I’ve had a greater earning potential.”
She said there was a myth that going to university would guarantee you better earning potential than doing an apprenticeship.
“There’s very much this idea that university is the better option than a VET [vocational education and training] pathway,” she said.
“I think that’s because that was the solution given to our parents, even just a few generations ago, to set yourself up to be secure and successful.”
According to SEEK, the average annual salary for trade jobs in Australia ranges from $75,000 to $95,000, but that can go much higher if people are willing to work overtime or take up a FIFO job. Belteky, for example, was earning $140,000 in mining freshly after she qualified.
Plus, unlike university degrees where graduates are left with an average HECS debt of $24,770, many trades offer fee-free apprenticeships, while also providing an income.
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