00:02Canberra is in the middle of a construction boom, but fewer people are learning the tricks
00:07of a trade.
00:09There's actually only seven apprentice bricklayers currently in training in the ACT, which is
00:14alarming.
00:14Apprentices need a boss to take them on.
00:17Daniel Swan is a third generation bricklayer.
00:20I've got Jacob, he's 21, but there's a big gap between 21 and the next guy, so yeah,
00:27I don't know what it's going to be like in 10 years time.
00:29Third year apprentice Jacob has always wanted to learn a trade.
00:33It was a hard gig, like I was a little skinny boy and yeah, it was hard to really get
00:39pushing
00:39and pushing moorberries and stuff, but then I kind of just stuck through it.
00:43Bricklayer Lynne Sheffield runs a trade school teaching apprentices skills.
00:48I really feel that we should be educating them first away from the job site and then bringing
00:54them into the job sites.
00:55And the bosses will use them more in their trade instead of just using them as labourers.
01:01We go to school once a month and it's not enough time for us to learn at the start of
01:04our apprenticeship.
01:05And it's just really hard.
01:06When you're third year and you can't lay bricks properly, you need that skill straight
01:10away.
01:11It's a qualified trade, but currently you don't need a licence to work as a bricklayer in
01:16the ACT.
01:16We don't even have to have our qualifications, so when you look around the job sites, there's
01:23a lot of bad work.
01:25We have a lot of labour, but not skilled labour.
01:29Putting that in context of the target of building 30,000 homes over the next five years,
01:35we've got a long way to go.
01:37Rethinking apprenticeships before skills hit a brick wall.
01:39.
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