April 2013
| Business World Magazine | 81
NOT A LAST RESORT
Even more on the bright side, Atkinson says
Canada has observed a growing change in
the attitude of parents and high school guid-
ance councillors in the last decade. Ten to
15 years ago, the labour supply issue may
have had something to do with the potential
stigma of working a construction job – these
days, that stigma has long since disappeared.
Today, Atkinson says, a college degree and a
ticket in a particular trade is not a career of
last resort, it is a career of first choice.
Recruitment efforts are strong at a
grassroots level, and CCA have been actively
making partnerships and launching initia-
tives to attract youth, as well as traditionally
underutilised demographics such as women
and First Nations people. The CCA website
careersincivilconstruction.ca is one among
many web tools and information the CCA
and their local associations have provided.
“All of our local construction associations
have programs trying to encourage people
to try and come into the construction in-
dustry and break all the myths down that it
isn’t somebody with a hardhat, a pick and a
shovel in a dirty ditch somewhere,” Atkinson
says.
“The construction industry is extreme-
ly high tech,” he continues. “There’s new tech-
nology being used all the time, and it’s a career
of first choice, not of last resort. It’s one of
the last fields of endeavour where somebody
truly can start on the tools at the bottom of
the totem pole, then become their own boss
and president of their own company through
their experience in the industry.”
