employes perspective
24th Jan 2008, 18:55
Qantas reassures on apprentices
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Steve Creedy | January 25, 2008
QANTAS Engineering is changing the way it takes on apprentices and has urged candidates not to be concerned about its dispute with licensed engineers.
Qantas is holding talks with its licensed engineers over a pay stand-off that almost resulted in industrial action earlier this month.
The talks are said to be progressing ahead of a February 1 deadline but the dispute has produced a number of claims about moves to take engineering work offshore or outsource it locally.
With a tight job market and good candidates harder to find, the airline has moved to assure applicants they have a promising future.
Qantas executive general manager of engineering David Cox said the airline remained strongly committed to its apprentice program.
"I think it's important to emphasise to people there are good long-term jobs here and, despite anything you may read in the papers, Qantas has a big future," Mr Cox told said.
"There will literally be thousands of engineers employed in Qantas Engineering, no matter what happens, for decades to come. Those jobs are there."
The airline expects at least 111 apprentices to graduate this year and is now seeking applicants for its 2009 intake. However, it will no longer take them all in one hit.
Mr Cox said this year's graduating apprentices - mainly aircraft maintenance engineers but also electricians, fitters/machinists, trimmers and spray painters - would all find jobs within the airline.
However, he admitted this had not always been the case and said Qantas did not want to again find itself in a position where it could not employ some apprentices.
"We will bring people in as part of smaller batches so the business has a better chance of just being able to absorb them effortlessly," he said.
Australia is facing a shortage of engineers as existing workers retire. Qantas has a younger demographic than the industry average but Mr Cox said the airline still had to pay careful attention to the situation.
It had put in place a scheme to encourage graduates of pre-vocational courses to take up apprenticeships. This included nine months' credit towards the four-year apprenticeship and reimbursing up to $4000 of the cost of an aero skills pre-vocational course.
The airline was also looking for mature age, female and indigenous applicants.
"We would really encourage people to think of a career as an apprentice leading into maintenance as something that fits anybody. It's not the traditional male, blokey sort of environment any more," he said. Asked whether he believed the current intake level was adequate, Mr Cox said it was second only to the armed forces and the number of apprentices at Qantas "was an order of magnitude above anybody else".
There was also an upper limit on the number of people the airline could train effectively, he said.
However, the Qantas executive conceded that the tight jobs market and a greater range of options available to workers meant the airline had to compete harder for candidates.
Be warned these are just further lies by Cox to further the cheap labor requirements,once you have finished you will be restricted to a job with zero career prospects .The amount of AME's leaving has never been in greater numbers due to management telling them that they will next to never receive LAME training.
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Steve Creedy | January 25, 2008
QANTAS Engineering is changing the way it takes on apprentices and has urged candidates not to be concerned about its dispute with licensed engineers.
Qantas is holding talks with its licensed engineers over a pay stand-off that almost resulted in industrial action earlier this month.
The talks are said to be progressing ahead of a February 1 deadline but the dispute has produced a number of claims about moves to take engineering work offshore or outsource it locally.
With a tight job market and good candidates harder to find, the airline has moved to assure applicants they have a promising future.
Qantas executive general manager of engineering David Cox said the airline remained strongly committed to its apprentice program.
"I think it's important to emphasise to people there are good long-term jobs here and, despite anything you may read in the papers, Qantas has a big future," Mr Cox told said.
"There will literally be thousands of engineers employed in Qantas Engineering, no matter what happens, for decades to come. Those jobs are there."
The airline expects at least 111 apprentices to graduate this year and is now seeking applicants for its 2009 intake. However, it will no longer take them all in one hit.
Mr Cox said this year's graduating apprentices - mainly aircraft maintenance engineers but also electricians, fitters/machinists, trimmers and spray painters - would all find jobs within the airline.
However, he admitted this had not always been the case and said Qantas did not want to again find itself in a position where it could not employ some apprentices.
"We will bring people in as part of smaller batches so the business has a better chance of just being able to absorb them effortlessly," he said.
Australia is facing a shortage of engineers as existing workers retire. Qantas has a younger demographic than the industry average but Mr Cox said the airline still had to pay careful attention to the situation.
It had put in place a scheme to encourage graduates of pre-vocational courses to take up apprenticeships. This included nine months' credit towards the four-year apprenticeship and reimbursing up to $4000 of the cost of an aero skills pre-vocational course.
The airline was also looking for mature age, female and indigenous applicants.
"We would really encourage people to think of a career as an apprentice leading into maintenance as something that fits anybody. It's not the traditional male, blokey sort of environment any more," he said. Asked whether he believed the current intake level was adequate, Mr Cox said it was second only to the armed forces and the number of apprentices at Qantas "was an order of magnitude above anybody else".
There was also an upper limit on the number of people the airline could train effectively, he said.
However, the Qantas executive conceded that the tight jobs market and a greater range of options available to workers meant the airline had to compete harder for candidates.
Be warned these are just further lies by Cox to further the cheap labor requirements,once you have finished you will be restricted to a job with zero career prospects .The amount of AME's leaving has never been in greater numbers due to management telling them that they will next to never receive LAME training.