Posted January 05, 2020 08:20:51The Government needs construction apprentices to be a more valuable resource to the construction industry, according to the Minister for Construction.
“It is clear that the construction sector needs more people in it to get jobs,” Senator Stephen Marshall said.
“I want to see that more people are in the industry.”
If we are serious about the construction apprenticeship, we need to get more people involved in that sector.
“That is the real opportunity for the construction industries.”
The Government will invest $1 billion in construction engineering apprenticeships, $1.6 million to $3.6 billion in apprenticeships for the Construction Industry Union and $1 million to 1.5 million in apprenticeship funding for the Building Industry Council of Australia.
The Government has also committed $1,000 to the Construction Engineers Association.
“Construction engineers have been at the heart of the Government’s strategy to ensure that our buildings are built to the highest standards and we want to keep them that way,” Minister for Finance Joe Hockey said.
The Minister said that $500,000 would be spent on a new pilot scheme to train construction apprentices for the first time in Victoria.
“We will spend $500 million on building apprenticeships and train those apprentices,” Mr Hockey said on Thursday.
“The first phase of that will involve training a pilot scheme of 150 construction engineers.”
The pilot scheme will be run by the Construction Engineering Council of Victoria.
The Federal Government is also committing $500 000 towards the first phase.
Mr Hockey said he was confident that the Federal Government would be able to provide more support to the Government to fund the apprenticeships.
“There is a lot of investment we are making in the construction community and that is the big part of this, and we will continue to do that,” he said.
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