Just when the housing / tradie crisis looked like it could have reached its nadir, more bad news is coming out of Victoria, with a 38% decline in apprenticeship and traineeship commencements.
The Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry reported the drop across four months in 2024-25, compared to the same time last year, with the biggest drops in carpentry and plumbing.
There have also been significant drops in commercial cookery, retail, hospitality, hairdressing and engineering fabrication.
Essentially if you want to buy a parmi, get a haircut or have a home to live in, it’s a little bit harder right now.
The Chamber surveyed its members and found that around 40% would require incentives of $12,000 or more to convince them to hire more apprentices. There was no word on what would require the other 60% to employ more.
The Chamber is looking for a Government handout of $15,000 per new apprentice for small businesses and scaled support for larger entities to kick start demand. Can’t fault them for aiming high.
