Developing and diversifying the fire protection industry

摘要

The fire protection sector needs to encourage more young people, particularly women, into the industry if it is going to flourish. Like most industries, the fire protection sector is aging. Those practitioners who made their way through the golden age - the training programmes of the seventies and eighties, run by some of our biggest companies - are starting to reach retirement age. A lack of trainees coming through the system is making it difficult for practitioners close to retirement to contemplate downing the tools and to entrust the future of the fire protection industry to the next generation. This is not purely a problem for our sector, as apprentice numbers are falling across the board. According to the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER), while almost 1 in 10 trade workers are apprentices or trainees, these numbers are decreasing year on year. Between 2014 and today, apprentice numbers have dropped by 22%, with only 266,565 people going through such training in Australia in the latest statistics. This is likely due to a number of factors, but clearly the diversity of careers currently in the market place is increasing options for school leavers, to the detriment of the trades.