US tradies provide a beacon of light for Australia
It seems Australians have much to gain from the innovative approaches used in the US and elsewhere to 
attract people to trade skill careers.Tumwater High School in Washington called on its construction trades students to put their developing skills, knowledge and experience to use and create a new greenhouse for the school.
Students from the school's advanced construction trades class found the project challenging and not as easy as anticipated, though in the end it proved to be a rewarding and satisfying experience; an experience embodied in a glasshouse which will long stand as a material reminder of their talent, hard-work, dedication and legacy to school.
Tumwater's students felt they were forced to think outside the square and implement innovative strategies in building the greenhouse, which was needed for the school's expanding horticulture program. The kit's aluminium frame, which didn't come with all the screws that it required, needed to be bent, cut and adjusted in order for it to match the measurements for the concrete slab floor.
Their construction trades teacher, Steve Eliason, feels this has been a worthwhile process, forcing the students to confront and overcome setbacks and difficulties, which consequently strengthens their knowledge and abilities; as he said "The kids are seeing what it's like in the real world."
After the greenhouse project, the advanced construction trades classes will work on a stick-built potting shed and a shed for equipment for the athletic fields - after-all education and skills-development is a process which never stops.
How does this international snapshot of trades-skills relate to the contemporary issue of skills-shortage in Australia?
American trades-people, construction workers in particular, may soon be of direct assistance to Australia as the US economy slows down and Australia step up its skilled migrant in-take to address skills shortages.
According to the policy chief executive of the Housing Industry Association (HIA) , Chris Lamont, "the US is expecting to downgrade its construction activity forecast..." and it would only be logical to offer employment here for American trades-people left redundant, a move which would solve their desperate situation and also, hopefully, as Lamont said, "arrest this significant deficiency in skills that currently prevail" in Australia.
The Housing Industry Association (HIA) has called for a special visa scheme to recruit 15,000 construction workers from abroad as a potential solution to Australia's building-trade apprentice scarcity and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd commented on Monday that the government would lend consideration to the scheme.