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If you're a qualified, trainee, or retired electrician - Which country is it that your work will be / is / was aimed at?
United Kingdom
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In the run up to A-level Results Day (August 15) Diane Johnson, Skills Ambassador at the Electrical Contractors’ Association (ECA), urges young people and their parents to consider all options when it comes to taking the next educational step:

Read the full news article
 
and I thought that the UK was saturated with electricians, plumbers and the likes... I must be wrong.. :)
I dont know many places that taken on apprentices now.
 
Yet again we have suits that are too lazy to do their job and run with the same old urban myths ie there is a massive skills shortage O yea well listing to radio 5 live this morning was a guy who worked in IT for a big insurance company who said we are bringing IT experts over from India that he had to train up only to get paid off as hi job was transferred to India.

Reading this nonsense only confirms what a state this country is in plus Dan I don't know if you are promoting this for your sponsors I hope not as this type of thing is only agrivating an already saturated trade
 
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we are bringing IT experts over from India that he had to train up only to get paid off as hi job was transferred to India.

Reading this nonsense only confirms what a state this country is in plus Dan I don't know if you are promoting this for your sponsors I hope not as this type of thing is only agrivating an already saturated trade

My son has been trying his hardest to get IT work, no apprenticeships, no jobs!!! makes me SO Fing Angry
 
My son has been trying his hardest to get IT work, no apprenticeships, no jobs!!! makes me SO Fing Angry

I agree I specialise in fault finding so being told there is not a problem when it is staring me in the face makes me cynical when these suits pop up with these comments so I have written to ECA to request what facts they have to support their article .

As always politicians are catching up late ie Labour this morning say Tesco & Next are ignoring British labour and hiring cheaper Eastern European O really you dont say and as for the Indian IT experts well I do rental repairs and yep he is over here working and his heavily pregnant wife is in the house with her mother is here not because he is better than your son its because he is cheaper so ironically we are sucking in guys like him with dependants who have not paid a penny into our system
 
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False reports to get kids onto courses for jobs that don't exist... its the domestic side that is saturated the big hole in our industry is in the industrial sector and Electrical Engineering quarters.... pen pushes with misguided reports justifying why they exist or closet qwango's as i like to call them - totally out of touch with reality.
 
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plus Dan I don't know if you are promoting this for your sponsors I hope not as this type of thing is only agrivating an already saturated trade

I thought Dan put it up as a joke, cause the trade is already going down hill quickly.. If he is doing this to promote his sponsors then I think it will back fire..
 
Aye send your children into self employed market with no security of wages soon as thy leave apprenticeship never mind having good life for working hard for your money, I'd rather they have part time job and go to uni.. If they don't have there minds set elsewhere .
 
No better place to put it to get it out there....
 
Just realised how pretentious the post title of "ECA skills Ambassador" what happened to ECA Spokesperson or ECA Training Strategist I wonder if they have diplomatic immunity to Bullsh!t
 
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There has never been a shortage of tradesmen.
there is a shortage of decent tradesmen with a bit of pride in their work though.
all this is to make sure all these trainers keep their 45k + car+ benefits jobs.
what is their answer to this "skills gap"
Lets dumb it down as much as possible so everyone passes regardless of ability.
Yeah that's helpful alright.
 
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Having just read this article with all the usual half truths and misinformation, it dawned on me that this is being written by a representative of the ''Electrical Contractors’ Association'' the very people that represent the companies that should be promoting and encouraging meaningful apprenticeships, ...Right?? So why is it, that only a very few of them are actually taking on bona fide apprentices?? These buggers haven't been active in the apprentice arena for what seems a good many years now!! They seem to only become remotely interested, as and when the Government is dishing out grants or other financial incentives etc!!! From what i can understand most of these so-called ''grant apprenticeships'' only have a duration of 2 years, so even at the end of these short training periods, you're still NOT going to have a well rounded tradesmen, just another part trained individual!! The word Hypocritical springs to mind!!

Rather than having a pop at the students and parents of school leavers, where's her so called leadership in kick starting these associated companies she is representing, into bona fide training schemes that will deliver the well rounded qualified electricians the UK will be needing?? Strikes me that her ECA post and title, is little more than an over paid resident desk job for someone that has little to no idea what is required as an electrician, or what's even going on in the big real world outside of her office!!


Said it more than once on here, the UK as a country will be hiring overseas contract electricians, in the not too distant future, (like the Saudi Arabia of Europe, without it's money) to provide cover for what little industries we have left. One things for absolute sure, our abundance of 17 Day/electrical trainee's ain't gonna be of any use whatsoever in industry, or even in the building of those industrial facilities!!
 
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So who can we hire to fight the cause ??
 
Well I have wrote to them asking where they got their info to back this article up So 2 things here if they do not get back to me then like E54 said its someone flying a desk and in my view just plain lazy repeating urban myths or they may reply but don't hold your breath
 
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she should stop worrying. there's half a million romanians & bulgarians packing their bags as we speak. they'll be happy to fill the gaps. for naff all.
 
As has already been said it's a sad situation with false promises and a lot of dumbing down, youngsters go on college courses that promise to turn them into qualified electricians and they end up coming out as little more than house bashers.Now I'm not knocking people who do houses but the country is full of them,it's industrial sparkies that we are short of,what will happen when the older ones retire? because there will be one hell of a hole to fill,and colleges are not helping either the last lad I trained up asked at college about pyro and was told they would not be doing it as " it's a black art and nobody uses it any more because you can use fp200 instead" really! A recent classic which highlights this was an electrician in the wholesalers i was talking to and he was going mad because it was 4.30 and he had to go to make off a pyro end,there was 15 sparks on the firm and he was the only one who knew how,needless to say he was a lot older than the other lads.Any way you look at it the situation is a right mess and needs sorting out it's pointless these different groups arguing and lying about the situation they need to get together and sort it.Train the youngsters properly and then when asked what they do they can say "I am an electrician" and feel proud that they have fully learned a valuable trade.
 
I bet Dan's glad he started this post....
 
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Phil you are right there is no way of denying it as a whole society has got lazy you just have to look at this forum where some attitudes are who gives a ---- if there is a problem then I have my smart phone to tap a knowledge base. Plus have seen a few guys who have blown it to be a spark where half could not hack the college and the other could not get out of bed either way for me thats Darwins Law kicking in and saying well you aint going to make it son.
 
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These *important* people in important trade bodies have to spout fear and doubt as its the only way they can justify being in that position. I'd sooner see them sacked for *real* people who are straight to the point and don't butter both sides of the bread. This type of person would be respected in my opinion.
 
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oh dear do I detect a touch of sarcasm there? lol

I keep asking for a sarcastic font, but hasn't happened as yet...
 
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O T you are so right, a young lad recently was amazed that I managed to find and fix a fault with only a few basic tools rather than a full kit,it's not about what you have it's how you use it,a lot of which comes down to what and how you were taught.
 
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Just realised how pretentious the post title of "ECA skills Ambassador" what happened to ECA Spokesperson or ECA Training Strategist I wonder if they have diplomatic immunity to Bullsh!t
jobs for the boys Old....
nowt new there...
i wonder when the annual round of musical chairs is due?
 
Wonder can Brussels help us..
 
Wonder can Brussels help us..

They can with Part P as I have said before in England LABC insist on Scheme membership but has anybody wrote to them to ask if they are abiding by the European Free Trade Act because if a trader can prove he or she is competent then they must accept certification like up here some councils have to be reminded of this as a sole trader can submit certification by Enquiry ie certs with a copy of calibration certs and front and back copy of you SJIB card and it has been found that some Scheme members have submitted certs with a scheme number on it only to find on checking there is no calibration certs and the persons qualifications is not up to date in other words no audit trail
 
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I guess where I work is the complete opposite to the rest of the world (no surprise there though tbh).
I am actually over whelmed with apprentices as my company likes to take them on.
However the problem is I cant train 4 apprentices at once, nor can I look out for and take care of them.
It really frustrates me as I was apprentice trained and I had the wonderful opportunity to learn from several engineers who all had different backgrounds and skill sets.
Now I am the mentor and instead of being able to pass my knowledge on 1-1 its 1-4 or at best 2-4 and it just does not work.
 
Like DW my concern is for industrial electricians. Particularly ones with fault finding skills. It’s not something that is going to be picked up on any short course.

If manufacturing does pick up where the hell do we get the skilled tradesmen? I’m not coming out of retirement for anyone! I don’t want to see us importing tradesmen, I’ve had bitter experience of working with them.

 
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Like DW my concern is for industrial electricians. Particularly ones with fault finding skills. It’s not something that is going to be picked up on any short course.

If manufacturing does pick up where the hell do we get the skilled tradesmen? I’m not coming out of retirement for anyone! I don’t want to see us importing tradesmen, I’ve had bitter experience of working with them.

Tony I did fault finding for 20 years but to be honest with the shift work and all the hassle I got for doing it I bailed out and started my business where I use about 10% of my experience but at least I can sleep at night with no hassle on the same money.

Years ago it was an advantage to have these skills now you get treated sometimes with contempt
 
The funny thing is I enjoyed shift work. I was put on days for three years, I was like a bear with a sore arse! A year on permanent nights I was as happy as Larry.

Unfortunately shift work is part and parcel of an industrial electrician’s life.
 
True but I worked in an environment where the manager had his favorites and anybody else got treated with contempt so when I came back after 2 weeks off there was a pile off jobs to look at and when I fixed them all in 2 days I got got a hard time because the favored sons looked bad. So I bailed out and 18 months later the govener broke on a 500k generator totally wrecking it and funny enough I got a kicking at the time for voicing was it a good idea to hack back the maintenance on them and hand the contract to oily rag company.

Not saying this happens everywhere but it does reflect the poor level of management in this country funny thing is I used to enjoy fixing things and finding faults before they got out of hand ie a stitch in time saves nine but hey hoe
 
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There’s two sides to every story. Somehow I found myself as production manger (I don’t know how it happened, I went in to work to have the warm smelly stuff dropped in my lap).

I went from bad tempered grumpy maintenance git to bad tempered grumpy production git with target figures to meet.

Maintenance gangs are an expense on a business that they would love to get rid of. The plant breaks down and suddenly they become gods. I’m sorry to say that I was an absolute barsteward with the maintenance gang. I knew all the tricks and they hated me for it. In the end I walked out to go back in to plant maintenance.
 
There’s two sides to every story. Somehow I found myself as production manger (I don’t know how it happened, I went in to work to have the warm smelly stuff dropped in my lap).

I went from bad tempered grumpy maintenance git to bad tempered grumpy production git with target figures to meet.

Maintenance gangs are an expense on a business that they would love to get rid of. The plant breaks down and suddenly they become gods. I’m sorry to say that I was an absolute barsteward with the maintenance gang. I knew all the tricks and they hated me for it. In the end I walked out to go back in to plant maintenance.
like the time you told me of how you were able to extract some extra hours out of the night shift....lol....
 

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If you're a qualified, trainee, or retired electrician - Which country is it that your work will be / is / was aimed at?
United Kingdom
What type of forum member are you?
Other
If other, please explain
Not an electrician at all.
Business Name
Ekthetikos

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British industry is sitting on a ticking time bomb, says ECA Skills Ambassador
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