Mike Holmes tackles skills shortage at Canadian Skills event

The HGTV personality was a spokesperson at the 2009 Canadian Skills Competition in Charlottetown this year, which targets the trade skills shortage. Event sponsor Fluke discusses weight of the problem. Holmes provides pointers on making it right.

More than 500 Canadian youth gathered in Charlottetown last week to compete in more than 40 skilled trade and technology categories for the 15th annual Canadian Skills Competition. More than 700 industry professionals were also on site at the event.

Traditional IT categories include the network support competition, Web design, graphics design and IT software applications. Unofficial competitions, such as the IT office, were another means of promoting real-world skills.

To continue reading, register here and become an Insider. You'll get free access to premium content from CIO, Computerworld, CSO, InfoWorld, and Network World. See more Insider content or sign in.

The HGTV personality was a spokesperson at the 2009 Canadian Skills Competition in Charlottetown this year, which targets the trade skills shortage. Event sponsor Fluke discusses weight of the problem. Holmes provides pointers on making it right.

More than 500 Canadian youth gathered in Charlottetown last week to compete in more than 40 skilled trade and technology categories for the 15th annual Canadian Skills Competition. More than 700 industry professionals were also on site at the event.

Traditional IT categories include the network support competition, Web design, graphics design and IT software applications. Unofficial competitions, such as the IT office, were another means of promoting real-world skills.

The IT office is a competition for students to set up and configure a typical small office environment, which includes loading applications and setting up the network, explained David Green, director of marketing for the AmPac Region of Fluke Corp.

In these environments, you don't have an IT manager and an office manager and somebody else to maintain the software, he said. "It's typically one person who has to do it all."

As an event sponsor and supplier, Fluke provided equipment for use in the electrical, refrigeration and IT network support competitions.

The competition is all about the skills shortage, said Green. Organized by Skills/Compétences Canada, the event was also used as a platform for government announcements on labour initiatives and additional labour funding, he pointed out.

According to one government agent who spoke at the event, the ability to have enough skilled trades and technology workers is the single largest issue for every province, said Green.

You can attract all the companies you want to try to set up business in your province, but if you don't have the labour force to support it, they're not going to show up, he explained.

"It's an interesting point that the one thing that might prevent somebody from setting up shop, whether they're coming from offshore or internally in Canada or moving to a new province, is the ability to have access to a workforce," said Green.

There are more people retiring or leaving the island than coming into the trades, he pointed out. "For a small province like P.E.I., it's a big problem. It's an equally big problem elsewhere," said Green.

The trade skills shortage no doubt exists, said Mike Holmes, host and creator of HGTV Canada's Holmes on Homes and commonly branded as "Canada's Most Trusted Contractor."

"We're approximately 100,000 tradespeople short in my industry. The big problem is that the average skilled trade worker right now is 55 years old and will be retiring anytime from now to the next 15 years," he said.

This could lead to a large-scale shortage of one million tradespeople, he pointed out.

"If no one really looks at this as an economical issue for our country, they need to think again," said Holmes. On top of lacking a workforce for building and repairs, as demand for skilled workers grows, more people that don't know what they're doing are going to get into it, he said.