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HomeNewsCarpentry program to address skills shortage begins next week at Canadore

Carpentry program to address skills shortage begins next week at Canadore

It’s a full house for the carpentry program at Canadore College.

With the 22-week program slated to begin next Monday, 17 students are enrolled in the free program.

Patricia Jackson, Project Leader and with the Quality, Learning, Teaching and Innovation department, says the last time Canadore’s North Bay campus offered the program was 2016 although it was run last year at the school’s Parry Sound campus.

Canadore is one of several colleges that runs the carpentry program which includes an apprenticeship placement.

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Jackson says the program is the province’s way to reduce the shortage Ontario faces in the skilled trades.

She says students are taught general carpentry, health and safety training, how to work with heights and they are also instructed in welding plus they get two weeks of basic electricity.

When they graduate they leave with a set of work boots and tools all supplied by the province.

Jackson says Canadore has been very successful with the program in the past and it’s received good feedback from employers who take on the students as apprentices.

“Often times those placements are paid and students just carry on and often are offered a fulltime job,” she said.

Jackson says depending on the trade, the percent of students landing work after Canadore hovers from 60 percent to 100 percent.

Jackson says if there’s one obstacle the students face it’s with their living expenses.

“That’s the one caveat participants have told me about in the past,” she said.

“It’s difficult for someone with a wife and kids to take the time to take the program while they’re not being paid.”

However, Jackson adds she’s been working with Yes Employment and other agencies “to get those people that need training to perhaps assist them with a living expense while they’re in this training.”

Jackson says the apprenticeship program has improved since Doug Ford took over as premier by changing the ratios.

She says it used to be that an employer would assign one licensed journeyman to an apprentice but if the same business had two apprentices, then it would need to staff three journeymen.

Jackson says having the additional journeymen made it difficult for employers to take on apprentices because they simply didn’t have the extra staff.

“But Premier Doug Ford changed all the ratios and now it’s one to one,” Jackson said.

She says because it’s now one journeyman per apprentices, more worksites have been able to afford to take on more apprentices.

 

 

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