Although skilled trades workers are in high demand across the province, the waitlist is long for skilled trades programs at the Nova Scotia Community College.
The province’s standing committee on human resources discussed the topic on Tuesday.
Don Bureaux, president of NSCC, said managing waitlists is an art and a science.
“If we double enrollment in one particular trade, and there’s not opportunities for those individuals to get a position where they can continue with their apprenticeship journey, then we are not doing anybody any favor. So it’s always that match between supply and demand,” he said.
He said sometimes they don’t get it right.
But he said they make sure every seat at the school is full come September.
In his opening remarks, Bureaux also said that it’s important for NSCC to improve enrollment and retain trained labourers.
One of the ways they could recruit more students into the trades by telling them earlier in the public school system that the trades are a valuable career.
“There was a generation unfortunately we lost in the province of Nova Scotia, where it wasn’t an attractive career choice. We knew different, but the messaging wasn’t there,” he said.
There’s a few different ways they can do this, including through high schools, summer camps, letting students “test drive.”
And once they’re interested in one program, he said those students can come and do open houses.
But on top of recruitment, Bureaux said they want to focus on retention.
He said it’s important to send trainees to the Nova Scotia Apprenticeship Agency, and the relationship between the two agencies has never been stronger.
“We’re working our waitlists like we’ve never worked before.”
