Western Standard - May 02, 2024


Educational elitism has created the shortage of skilled labour we have today

CMS： Trades should be celebrated rather than shamed. ALBERTA REPORT： Talking trains with Minister Dreeshen

Episode Stats


Length

4 minutes

Words per minute

212.24

Word count

1,052

Sentence count

67

Harmful content

Misogyny

3

sentences flagged

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, I talk about why we don't need more liberal arts graduates, and why we need tradespeople to fill the gaps left by the lack of skilled workers in the construction industry. I also talk about how much better it would be if we focused on education and less on the liberal arts.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 I mean, economic times, they've been tough since governments around the world
00:00:03.380 decided to overreact and go bananas over COVID-19 in 2020.
00:00:08.160 They shut down aspects of the economy and they increased government deficit spending.
00:00:13.460 It was a recipe for mass inflation, so the outcome was as expected.
00:00:17.580 Of course, we had supply chain shortages that led to runs on consumer products,
00:00:21.480 while the currency creation of countries around the world shot prices through the roof.
00:00:25.540 It's going to take at least a decade before we see stable economic activity again.
00:00:30.360 Now, today in Canada, we're suffering from a housing shortage.
00:00:33.120 And it wasn't just COVID policies that led to this, that contributed.
00:00:36.200 The pandemic was just the final economic straw on an issue that's building for a long time.
00:00:40.440 We've had environmental regulations gatekeeping local governments.
00:00:43.480 They've been hindering housing starts as they have this obsessive focus on building up rather than out,
00:00:47.680 and they've stunted natural urban growth.
00:00:50.020 And of course, mass immigration has led to a huge increase in demand for housing
00:00:53.840 as over a million people a year flow into the country.
00:00:55.620 But let's say, let's say Canada figures it all out, and we're ready to get building.
00:01:00.880 Immigration, let's imagine, has been greatly reduced and is targeted.
00:01:04.080 City councils have stopped nasal gaining about rezoning, nasal gazing, and nasal, nasal gazing.
00:01:09.680 That's a tongue twister, isn't it?
00:01:10.820 About rezoning areas and began working on finding real ways to increase housing.
00:01:14.840 And the government somehow even managed to balance the budget and get inflation under control.
00:01:18.920 I know, a big imaginary world.
00:01:20.020 We'd still be left with a massive housing backlog to catch up on.
00:01:24.480 So the next question is going to be, who's going to build all these houses?
00:01:27.720 Well, in 2023 in Calgary, there were 30,500 job vacancies.
00:01:31.980 That's a lot of jobs, you know, vacant.
00:01:34.300 And nearly 7,600 of them were in construction.
00:01:37.140 And this trend is the same in every jurisdiction experiencing population growth.
00:01:41.240 While activists and politicians ramble about raising minimum wages
00:01:44.260 and finding ways to offer relief to baristas trying to pay off student loans,
00:01:48.560 they don't speak up much on the bidding wars that are happening in the construction market for labor right now.
00:01:54.080 Young people should be directed where the work is, 1.00
00:01:56.400 rather than trying to create markets where they don't exist.
00:01:59.360 We don't need more liberal arts graduates.
00:02:01.120 We need tradespeople. 1.00
00:02:02.620 There's been a stigma attached to the trades for decades.
00:02:05.760 And when I finished high school, I saw it myself.
00:02:07.600 I finished school in the late 80s.
00:02:09.540 I didn't have any idea what an apprentice was, even though I was finishing high school.
00:02:12.460 Well, do they not even teach you a little bit about that?
00:02:15.140 How do you even start in the trades if I'm interested?
00:02:17.360 But we were taught that your future is binary.
00:02:19.680 Either you graduate high school and go on to pursue a degree, or you're a janitor.
00:02:23.040 There was nothing in between.
00:02:24.580 Kids who underperformed academically, well, they might end up sent to a dreaded vocational school.
00:02:29.420 And they were considered objects of pity or shame.
00:02:32.360 The young folks who found themselves training for the trades, though,
00:02:35.060 despite the lack of guidance from the educational system,
00:02:37.600 usually did pretty well for themselves.
00:02:39.100 Instead of building up a debt of student loans, they went straight to the working world. 0.99
00:02:42.140 And if they got certified in a trade, well, they were pretty much set.
00:02:45.360 How many of you have seen any plumbers in the unemployment line lately?
00:02:48.020 Seen any electricians riding the bus to work?
00:02:50.440 Heard any carpenters complaining of being underemployed?
00:02:53.420 Journeymen in the trades are commanding high wages and good working conditions these days.
00:02:57.760 There have been ups and downs in the economy, but they've typically been always working,
00:03:00.900 and they're enjoying the benefits of hyper-demand for their skills today.
00:03:04.080 Can the same be said for people holding a degree in interpretive dance or philosophy?
00:03:08.580 Usually the only thing you can say to those graduates is,
00:03:11.180 yes, please use skim in my latte. Thank you.
00:03:13.760 Even if it isn't in a formal trade, there's many well-paying construction opportunities.
00:03:17.520 Heavy equipment operators, framers, drywallers, painters, they're all commanding high wages right now.
00:03:22.060 Even entry-level unskilled construction laborers are being offered over $20 an hour to start in Calgary right now.
00:03:28.180 What's the pay scale for a person with a degree specializing in gender studies or intersectional South American poetry these days?
00:03:36.000 There's nothing wrong with any other job, for that matter, as well.
00:03:39.560 And looking at the listings online, I see janitors, the ones I mentioned earlier,
00:03:42.360 they can make $20 an hour, and who's to say they don't move on to develop a cleaning business and make a lot more? 0.99
00:03:47.620 We've allowed elitism to take over our education system.
00:03:51.560 A large number of teachers are embittered liberal arts graduates who enter the field in pursuit of good pay and a pension rather than a love of teaching.
00:03:58.620 They still harbor a disdain for the world that forced them to work at Pizza Hut for years
00:04:02.460 before admitting their tribal music degree wasn't going to pay their bills,
00:04:06.640 while the students who went into the trades or went to the oil field, of course, were buying big trucks in their first homes.
00:04:10.680 They pass that attitude down to the students as they stigmatize non-academic career paths.
00:04:15.540 Even if unconsciously, Canada's education system has failed to create the skilled people we need for today's demands,
00:04:22.500 and we're all paying the price for that now.
00:04:24.380 It'll take years before the students of today are ready to take on the labor needs of tomorrow, 0.84
00:04:27.800 but there's no better time than now to start changing our paths.
00:04:31.080 AI, that's the big game changer, and it's going to be eliminating a lot of jobs.
00:04:34.680 It's foolish to direct students into fields vulnerable to AI replacement.
00:04:37.680 But it's going to be a long time before a robot's able to unplug your toilet,
00:04:42.020 especially after Taco Tuesday, or wire a new lighting system into your house, or change the shingles.
00:04:47.620 Let's start preparing kids for career futures that are going to be in demand.
00:04:50.740 And that means dropping the stigma applied to non-academic paths, and in particular, in construction and trades.