Younger people entering skilled trades

More and more younger people are embracing skilled trades.

"We're getting a lot of people coming in at 18, 19, 20 years old where for the last 30 years, our average age would have been about 29 or 30," said Rick Adams, VP of HiMark, an occupational skills training centre with various locations across the province.

St. Joe's student Maxxim Thibault is one of the young ones, "It's one of the better things I go into right now instead of going into start trying to be a doctor where there's not many people that can actually get into it, you know, and then it takes a lot of time to do it."

Students from local catholic high schools, and adults, took part in a skilled trades boot camp at the St. Anne Academy and Learning Centre put on by Support Ontario Youth.

"We'll teach people that are interested in the skilled trades, in that particular trade, about all the different aspects of the trades," said boot camp Manager Mike Morrison.

Brandi Ferenc got into the trades later in life but was on hand as a mentor and example of what success can look like for those who decide to steer down the career path.

"My license, A313A refrigeration mechanic, it's equivalent to a master's degree. I spent 9,000 hours to get my ticket and, you know, we're saying that the apprenticeship pathway is the third and equal pathway [of] post-secondary,” said Ferenc.

Participants got to perform some work as potential employers looked on.

"They get to display what they can do or at least show that they can learn as we're instructing them to do the projects that we're doing," Adams said.

Support Ontario Youth holds about 25 of these boot camps a year across the province.

Thursday's event focused on five trades and offered an essential element for those looking to become employable.

Half of the day involved a session focused on essential employability skills. Morrison said employers are looking for people who have integrity, are willing to learn and collaborate.

"Most of the employers that do come out, they spend a lot of time in our employability skills workshops because they're seeing participants act and interact, and they're imagining those participants on the jobsite and going into people's homes,” said Morrison.