THE INDUSTRY HAS FACED THE ISSUE OF NOT HAVING ENOUGH SKILLED LABOR FOR FAR TOO LONG, SO THE SMA PUT A LITTLE SOMETHING TOGETHER TO HELP COMBAT THIS ISSUE.
Apprenticeship is a formal program that usually involves two to four years of structured instruction, coupled with hands-on training. Many apprenticeship programs are registered within the Department of Labor and have to meet a minimum training criteria established by the government. This strategy worked for many decades and was the driving force to retain market share for assemblies dependent on trained and skilled trade workers. When apprenticeship numbers in our trades began to dwindle, defect litigation claims soon followed and grew directly with a decrease in apprenticeship. To me, this was not a coincidence.
Apprenticeship was the best method of passing along skills, knowledge and trade techniques for the workers. And the loss of apprenticeship hit the construction industry hard. Try thinking of a craft more skill-intensive than lath and plaster. Not a lot comes to mind, right? We expect tougher codes and standards to fix the lack of skilled-labor problems but they can’t. We need training and education, and it needs to be verifiable to the decision-makers.