Kenny Gates helps Daniel Friesen, a 16-year-old from London Christian High School, solder some pipe during the Level Up! Skilled Trade Careers Fair at the J-AAR Expo Centre Pavilion in London, Ont., on Thursday.Geoff Robins/The Globe and Mail
Inside a large pavilion centre in London, Ont., thousands of students from Grade 7 to 12 are trying their hands at more than 140 skilled trades.
A group of girls are scooping mortar with trowels, scraping it onto bricks and laying them in neat rows.
Over at the sheet metal station, a long line of students are waiting their turn to hammer and bend copper into whistles they will get to take home.
Behind them, the clanging sound of hammers comes from students who are helping build tiny homes that will be used as temporary housing shelters.
Near the middle of the pavilion, 16-year-old Daniel Friesen, wearing a cowboy hat and battered leather jacket, is holding a blow torch carefully in one hand to solder copper pipe under the guidance of Kenny Gee, an HVAC professional.
“I like working with metal,” Mr. Friesen said. “I like working with my hands.” He wants to go in to construction after high school.
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The Ontario government launched the Level Up! Skilled Trades Career Fairs in 2022 to give students across the province a chance to try different trades, connect with employers and learn about apprenticeship pathways.
Since then, interest among students and parents has ballooned – the three-day event in London this year saw more than 7,200 students, parents and job seekers attend, an 80 per cent increase over last year’s two-day event.
“There is an energy around trades now that didn’t exist five years ago,” said Candice White, chief executive and registrar of Skilled Trades Ontario, the government agency responsible for apprenticeship and skilled trades certification in the province.
Part of the growth of this year’s events is thanks to a marketing campaign that targeted young people on social-media platform Snapchat and computer game Minecraft, Ms. White says.
Candice White, chief executive and registrar of Skilled Trades Ontario, says there's 'an energy around trades now that didn’t exist five years ago.'Geoff Robins/The Globe and Mail
But it is also due to the fact that students and their parents know that, because of AI and other factors, many career paths aren’t as stable as they once were. With the shortage of skilled trades workers in Canada – more than 700,000 skilled trades employees are expected to retire by 2028 – there is a great opportunity for young people to find meaningful, well-paying careers in the industry.
The Level Up! Fairs aim to show them what’s out there, and help answer any questions they might have about pursuing them, such as what courses to take and how apprenticeships work.
The 12 Level Up! career fairs this year began in Grafton in September and will culminate with a stop in Ottawa in December.
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“With all the building that we’re doing, a lot of people are retiring and we need young people to come in,” said Bob Robinson, director of education at HiMark Occupational Skills Training Centre London, the trades school that was teaching students to solder pipe.
Every vendor at the fairs needed to include an interactive component.
Mr. Robinson chose the soldering for a simple reason.
“It’s a fairly safe thing to do, and you can play with fire,” he said. “All the kids love to see fire, so they’re drawn here.”
Shai Borden and his friend Bakr Al Hosin, both 13 years old, and both with stickers given out by the welding vendor stuck to their hoodies, were excitedly wandering the fair trying as many activities as they could.
“They show me more what I want to do, and how hard it would be to actually do the thing,” Shai said.
Shai Borden and Bakr Al Hosin, both 13 years old, say they are interested in careers in construction and tried many activities available at the fair.Geoff Robins/The Globe and Mail
Both said they are interested in careers in construction.
“You can make a lot of money, and it also like gets you fit, gets you strong,” Shai said, raising his arms up in a classic bodybuilder pose.
Not every student at the London fair seemed thrilled to be there, including two young girls in baggy sweatpants sitting in the cabin of a street sweeper, parked by the Public Works display, looking down at their phones.
But events like this one are crucial to helping students understand what trades are out there, and what they involve, said Jennifer Ingratta, an Ontario Youth Apprenticeship recruiter at the London Catholic School Board.
Zariya Service, centre, a Grade 8 student from Stratford, learns how to lay a brick during the fair.Geoff Robins/The Globe and Mail
“It’s so important for them to have that experiential learning because until they actually try it, they may not realize it’s a good fit for them,” she said.
Ashlyn Kendall, a Grade 11 student, was helping build the tiny homes near the back of the pavilion.
A green hard hat on her head, hammer hanging on her tool belt and friendship bracelets known to Swifties everywhere on her wrist, Ms. Kendall discovered an interest in working with her hands thanks to a construction course she took at her high school last year.
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“I really like how hands-on it is compared to math or English or something,” she said.
Now, she says, she wants to pursue an apprenticeship on her way to becoming a general contractor as she completes her Specialist High Skills Major, a program that allows high-school students to focus on a specific career sector.
“Based on all the trades I’ve tried so far with this SHSM program, I think I like working with wood the best, and I think that that’s probably the best route to go to do that, but also have a wide variety of things I’m doing.”