The BC Aerospace Workforce Strategy is the culmination of a two-year effort by industry, labour, government and training institutions to find collective solutions to the shortage of skilled labour in the province of British Columbia. Like every industry sector, aerospace is facing demographic challenges due to the dwindling number of workers entering the workforce. However, there are also licensing, certification and other regulatory requirements that are unique to aerospace. Co-operation with all stakeholders is essential to ensure that BC’s industry has the necessary skilled workers to ensure prosperity.
A five-year, 10-point implementation plan was developed as the core of the BC Aerospace Workforce Strategy. This action plan is now a work in progress and provides a roadmap for human resource development in BC’s aerospace industry. The following documents are available for your reference.
Why is action necessary?
Employment growth in both the manufacturing and the maintenance sectors within the aerospace industry in British Columbia is on a continuing upward trend: 5% per annum average growth for the manufacturing sector and 3% per annum growth for the (larger) maintenance sector, even despite events of September 11, 2001 that affected the global aerospace industry. Quantitative analysis of business growth and employment growth confirms that aerospace employers in this province face a potential skills shortage in at least six occupational groups. Many aerospace companies in British Columbia are still recovering from business slowdowns in the aftermath of September 11, 2001 events, and there are not acute hiring difficulties across the board right now. The skills shortage will become critical by 2005-08 however, if action is not taken now.
There are several reasons. Canada’s population is aging and its birth rate falling, so employers face a smaller proportion in the 15-45 age segment of the labour pool. Many people already in the work force are retiring early, i.e., between 50-60, rather than working until 65 or older.[1] And because the aerospace workforce in BC has an older age structure than is true nationally, retirement rates will climb faster – and will keep climbing between now and 2008.
Job opportunities for young workers will be increasingly abundant in all sectors of the provincial economy – and aerospace employers face stiff competition for recruits from employers in other industries. The aerospace industry in British Columbia currently has a very low profile with youth, teachers and parents, career counsellors, adults who are considering a career change, and government workers who are involved in technical training and apprenticeship initiatives, so it is disadvantaged in this competition for skilled workers. As well, the labour pool that employers in the civilian aerospace industry could draw from during the 1990s, i.e., skilled workers leaving the military, no longer exists. Downsizing of national defense forces in Canada has not only stopped: the military are now competing with civilian aerospace employers in recruitment campaigns and offering signing bonuses.
The long training pipeline for aircraft maintenance workers – with waiting lists for training programs, lengthy technical training in classrooms, then long requirements for “time on trade” (on-the-job training requirements before being certified or licensed) – is one reason why training investments should be increased now, rather than waiting until new entry rates cannot begin to compensate for retirement-related exits. The complexity and cost of technical training requirements in aerospace is another reason for beginning increased training now: i.e., so that rising investment in aerospace training can be sufficiently moderate in annual increases as to be manageable for all stakeholders.
What skill shortages are most critical?
Research indicates that the occupation groups with the greatest anticipated demand are: (highest to lowest)
- AME-M Aircraft Maintenance Engineers and unlicensed technicians on the same training path
- AME-S Aircraft Structures Engineers and unlicensed structural repair technicians
- AME-E Avionics Maintenance Engineers and unlicensed avionics technicians
- Gas Turbine Engine Repair Technicians
- Structures Manufacturing Technicians
- Aviation Machinists
- Helicopter Dynamic Component Technicians
Relative to anticipated supply of graduates from post-secondary educational institutions who are delivering aerospace technical training, the two areas in which supply is most likely to be inadequate are:
- AME-S and Aircraft Structures Technician group and
- AME-E and Avionics Technician group.
The top three categories on the “high demand” list are especially critical because it is only AMEs who can sign out aircraft on which many other workers in unlicensed occupational groups perform manufacturing or repair tasks. Without an adequate supply of AMEs to perform supervisory and coaching tasks, aerospace companies will find that productivity and profitability suffer – and industry growth is not possible.
Research has also identified significant new skills and knowledge that workers must acquire to effectively fulfill manufacturing and maintenance responsibilities: e.g., lean manufacturing principles and procedures, expertise in other process technologies, computer-based design, trend monitoring and predictive maintenance techniques that are computer-based, virtual modelling and other 3-D visualization and simulation technologies to determine airworthiness, more advanced knowledge about avionics systems and electronic control, business skills training that focuses on life cycle affordability analysis, toxicity reduction in manufacturing and maintenance processes, and enhanced team work and customer service skills to address the supply chain consolidation and increased precision requirements in virtually all business and technical processes.
What recruitment initiatives are planned?
One recruitment initiative is collaborative work with other aerospace associations across Canada to create an enhanced on-line service for candidate screening and job posting.
With the on-line service to facilitate recruitment of skilled workers, the strategy is to share development and maintenance costs with aerospace associations in other jurisdictions in Canada; to make the resume posting service international in scope for job candidates but limit job posting eligibility to Canadian employers; and to work with the Canadian Aviation Maintenance Council to explore the feasibility of enhancing the existing CAMC service (similar in nature but without some desired features) and offering it on a fee-for-service basis to non-members as well as members of CAMC, rather than building a parallel (competing) service at additional infrastructure cost.
Besides the national on-line service for job postings and screening of job candidates, recruitment initiatives include targeted publicity campaigns coordinated by the industry association (Aerospace Industry Association of BC). Key contacts and recommended tactics were identified during roundtable sessions
Target audiences are: (a) parents, secondary school teachers and career counsellors, and youth; (b) women; (c) First Nations employment services and workers; (d) tradespeople (e.g., machinists) seeking re-employment in new industries; (e) recent immigrants employed in aerospace and those immigrants’ professional networks in their countries of origin. In all cases, key objectives of the communication campaigns are to raise awareness of aerospace training, employment and career options and to heighten interest in the industry.
As discussed further below, ongoing liaison with government contacts is also essential.
What is the training strategy?
The primary feature of the HRD strategy of the industry in British Columbia is adoption of a “grow our own” approach to acquiring the skilled labour that is needed. The focus is:
- Faster introduction to the workplace for learners in aerospace trades training programs
- Creation of more on-the-job training (OJT) opportunities to enable technicians to meet certification standards (and for some, licensure requirements) – through “chunking down” of OJT modules into smaller intervals of time (e.g., three-month blocks) and interspersing them with classroom training
- Increased transparency for learners about how specific training programs ladder into occupational and license requirements - including better integration of standards and apprenticeship programs used by provincial trainers with national certification standards, licensure requirements and tracking system
- Better coordination of work experience placements through establishment of an Aerospace Training Council serving multiple employers and training providers
- Heightened employer involvement in screening criteria and procedures for aerospace training programs delivered by colleges - coordinated through an industry training council
- Ongoing tracking of labour market information and setting of training priorities through this industry training council including business and labour representatives.
In particular, addressing the skill shortage in aerospace means that companies need to provide more supervised on-the-job training for graduates of basic training delivered by regional colleges and training institutes. Increasing employer willingness and capacity for greater uptake of basic-training graduates is a more pivotal issue than increasing seat capacity at colleges. Once learners graduate from basic training, they still need 36 to 48 months of on-the-job training to qualify for licensed occupations and also the certified occupations on the high-demand list noted on page i.
Data supplied by companies participating in the HRD roundtables (on the number of OJT placements for these apprentices) indicates a considerable gap between current OJT opportunities for basic training grads and the number needed to develop a fully-qualified workforce of adequate size to meet employers’ demands.
College capacity for aerospace technical training is an issue – but more work experience placements for learners to acquire their OJT credits are needed even more. The greatest skill shortage is in AME categories. Colleges do not graduate AMEs. Only aerospace companies can provide the necessary on-the-job supervised training that enables graduates of basic training to become AMEs.
Priority has been given to establishing a co-op delivery option for AME training by 2003 in one or more Approved Training Organizations (Lower Mainland, Northern BC, Central Interior). Implementation will begin with AME-M training, then expand within a year to include AME-S training, followed by a co-op program for AME-E training by 2005. By breaking OJT requirements into 3-month modules that can be interspersed with classroom studies, employers anticipate being able to accommodate more novice workers. The first co-op program can begin as early as May 2003 at BCIT, provided industry reps committed to work experience placements for a minimum of 17 students over a three-year period, and also take an active role in the curriculum review and other preparatory steps.
Priority has also been given to establishment of an Aerospace Industry Training Council to ensure ongoing monitoring of labour demands, stewardship of new training programs, and facilitation of work experience placements. Training providers in the secondary and post-secondary education network have demonstrated considerable openness to new delivery options, but implementation of proposed programs is contingent on industry being able to set (and meet) annual and multi-year targets regarding the number of work experience placements they can accommodate.
With the national findings on new technologies and on process improvements, the establishment of an Industry Training Council becomes all the more important. The knowledge and skills that are needed to complete aerospace manufacturing and aircraft maintenance are changing - and in some ways, quite dramatically so. Industry and educators need to work well and closely to ensure not just sufficient seat capacity in technical training programs but appropriate curriculum and skill development experience.
Ongoing liaison with government is also needed because of emergent policy in BC that favours competency-based assessments over time-on-trade requirements for apprentices, and also because of provincial proposals to considerably shorten the duration of much technical training. Regular and factual communication with key contacts in the BC Ministries of Education, Advanced Education, Skills Development & Labour, and Competition, Science & Technology is needed because the aerospace industry is distinctive in the high degree of regulation over training of licensed workers, and allowance needs to be made for that when determining nature of provincial technical training programs to fund. Canadian Aviation Regulations currently include time-on-trade requirements. To eliminate these and rely solely on competency-based performance assessments would require a national initiative through the CARAC process (Canadian Aviation Regulation Advisory Committee), then international negotiations because of the bilateral agreement between Canada and the United States on aerospace-related training.
Employers recognize the high cost of aerospace trades training due to aircraft, equipment and related facility requirements. They also recognize that public investment to enable BCIT and Northern Lights College to acquire Approved Training Organization status with Transport Canada for aerospace training has already been substantial: over half a million dollars for BC Institute of Technology alone. Industry (AIABC, IAMAW and PAMEA) therefore supports a “hub-and-spoke” model (or rather, “two-hubs-and-spokes”) delivery strategy for training that emphasizes the re-usability or multiple applications of the ATO status that has been earned by BCIT and Northern Lights by strengthening partnership arrangements between these ATOs and other regional colleges, and by also ensuring Transport Canada approval of credit transfer arrangements for all occupational training that is being delivered by publicly-funded colleges in BC and that potentially ladders into AME training.
Later phases of the training plan emphasize:
- Establishing a “common core” curriculum for Secondary School / Post-Secondary Integrated Studies
- Then expansion of the SS/PS Integrated Studies program to more school districts
- Fostering of multi-college partnerships for delivery of approved aerospace training in more regions of BC – without replicating large investment of public dollars into acquisition of ATO status by all providers.
What retention action is also needed?
Retention initiatives are as critical as training initiatives because workers will be attracted to those employers offering the best compensation, best working conditions, and best chances of ongoing employment instead of project contracts. Given the reality that all sectors of the BC and Canadian economy are facing skill shortages (expected to become critical for every sector by about 2008), aerospace companies cannot simply compare themselves against other companies in their own industry. The aerospace industry is a relatively high-wage employer.[2] Nonetheless, increased attention on workplace culture, working conditions, and compensation for those already in the aerospace workforce in BC, as well as for new hires, is needed to prevent loss of highly skilled workers to other jurisdictions and other industries.
