Aussies urge youth to take up trades
Older Australians are urging the young and upcoming generation to take up a trade, according to a study of 2,800 by LinkeMe.com.au, Australia’s leading career and networking site beating traditional high status professions of law and medicine hands down.
More than 44% of respondents said they would advise their young to take up a trade because of the very high wages, flexibility, high demand and work life balance involved. And It seems, young Australians are readily taking up this advice with the Department of Education and Training Apprenticeships & Traineeships claiming an unprecedented expansion in TAFE student enrolments jumping from 356,000 people in 1996 to 508,000 in 2004.
Mr Campbell Sallabank, CEO of LinkMe says not surprisingly, 41.7% of mums and dads still aspire for their offspring to go into medicine, but with the very high scores needed to obtain a university place, this simply is not an option for most students.
“The Internet is seen as the industry of the future and 40.9% say they would prefer their kids to byte the bullet and make their way in the world of dot coms and web sites.
“In a turn up for the books, teachers and educators (29%) are a more popular career choice than lawyers and bankers and media/marketers/advertising careers and office clerical jobs coming in as they jobs least likely to be recommended by the career elders.
Interestingly, more than half of the respondents said they would not make the same study choices if they had their time again.
Respondents to the survey recommend the following career choices:
- Trades: 44.9%
- Medical: 41.7%
- IT & T: 40.9%
- Business: 33.8%
- Teaching and Education: 29%
- Law: 28.7%
- Finance: 27.6%
- Engineering: 25.9%
- Construction: 24.4%
- Human Recourses: 24.3%
- Science: 23.5%
- Media/ Marketing/Advertising: 18.2%
- Office Administration: 15.1%
