Removing the barriers for apprentices

I started North South Motors Ltd. some eight years ago and I’ve grown the business to a successful three-bay operation in Toronto.

One of the issues that I and other service providers have to struggle with every day is finding good staff, people who are reliable and competent, who a shop owner can count on to do a good job and have the right skill levels to meet the many challenges of today’s automobiles. So why is it so hard to find someone like that now? I believe there are two reasons: the first is the difficulty of getting young people interested in our kind of business as a long-term career; the second, is the financial barriers that have to be overcome in order to do so.

All of us in this industry have to start doing a better job of educating young people about the advantages of a service technician career, and the first step in that education process is taking down some misconceptions many have about this business. Some still believe this industry is not very technical, that it is purely mechanical and will not challenge them intellectually. Nothing could be further from the truth. Over the years, I’ve seen this industry advance in many ways and to stay competitive a good technician must always be updating their computer-based equipment, and their mechanical/technical knowledge. Young people have to be made to understand this industry will challenge them, that they will always be honing existing skills and developing a host of new ones; and they will be using modern, high-tech equipment at all times. The grease-monkey image of a garage repairman is as out-of-date as a Model T Ford.

Another set of barriers we have to help overcome is the cost of becoming a technician. Today, an apprentice has to buy their own tools as no shop will look at an apprentice seriously if they show up at the front door without the basic tools to do the job. Certainly that was the case in my day and it is no different now. But those tools cost money, a lot of money, and it is a very large investment for someone just starting out in their career and especially someone fresh out of school. Things have improved on this front a bit. The recent Federal budget took some good first steps towards making it easier for apprentices to get a tax break on the cost of tools.

But we in this industry should collectively press even harder now for more tax breaks for apprentices and getting the right financial help for them to get the training they will need to be successful. If the financial barriers for apprentices are kept too high then it will be difficult for us to find the skilled young people this industry needs to stay healthy and to continue to grow.