B.C. Invests $3 Million in Trades at KPU

Investment will fund 1,238 seats in trades programs

A recently announced investment of $3-million by the provincial government will open 1,238 new seats at Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s tech campus in Cloverdale. The funding is for education in trade fields such as welding, electrical, automotive, millwright, and carpentry, all of which are expected to be in demand in B.C. over the next couple of decades.

Announcing the investment at an event held at the tech campus was Surrey-Cloverdale MLA and KPU graduate Stephanie Cadieux.

“Certainly, we know that with a growing economy and with retirement on the rise we have expected about a million job openings by 2025,” says Cadieux. “Eight out of ten of those will require some sort of post-secondary education or trades training.”

This investment is made through the province’s Industry Training Authority, the crown corporation responsible for overseeing trades training and certifying skilled tradespeople in B.C. This $3 million is part of approximately $72 million that the Industry Training Authority distributes per year to 14 public post-secondary institutions in B.C., as well as 24 industry training providers.

The Industry Training Authority has also created the B.C. Skills for Jobs Blueprint. The Blueprint provides a guide for prospective trades students to find training for jobs which are expected to be in high demand. The $3-million investment given to KPU is meant to help the university provide the training in specifically prioritized trades, as outlined in the Blueprint.

“Trades can be a really good career option for people. Obviously, [prospective trades students] need to have the aptitude and the interest in a particular area,” says Cadieux. “But then I think they need to look at the labor market information on where those jobs are going to be.”

The expectations for in-demand jobs found in the Skills for Jobs Blueprint are sourced from the 2025 B.C. Labour Market Outlook. The Labour Market Outlook uses data collected from a range of provincial agencies and other institutions to offer predictions about—among other things—where job openings can be expected through to 2025.

“We’ve been doing a lot of work within government and with our partners in industry to look at what are the in-demand jobs and re-engineering the way we fund post-secondary education to make sure that we are training people for the jobs that will be there,” says Cadieux.

While a significant amount of projected job openings are expected to be created due to provincial growth, another two thirds of the job openings expected between now and 2025 will be positions opened due to retirement, according to the findings in the labour market outlook.

“We really have an opportunity here for young people who are starting their careers,” says Cadieux. “There is going to be opportunity as people retire and we just need to make sure that people are trained up in the areas where those retirements are going to occur.”