Getting skilled workers is a huge challenge for many businesses across the province, including Wallaceburg tool and tie company AarKel.
In an effort to try and add to their workforce, AarKel Tool and Die is teaming up with St. Clair College to deliver a customized training program to train AarKel new hires in precision metal cutting CNC machining to supply local skilled labour for its Wallaceburg facilities.
The college provides skills training, however, in an effort to be responsive to rural employers in the manufacturing industry and to reduce barriers for Wallaceburg youth to gain access to skilled trades training, St. Clair College has collaborated with AarKel Tool and Die to deliver training on site at AarKel’s headquarters in Wallaceburg.
It’s hoped that this initiative will provide AarKel with the ability to retain workers and continue to grow its local operations.
Larry Delaey, AarKel Tool and Die’s President and CEO, said the collaboration with St. Clair College to deliver customized training is a tremendous opportunity, especially given the skilled training shortage in the area.
“Obviously being in a rural area and in a smaller city we do find that when the people (are from here) they tend to stay,” Delaey says. “We have reached out to the big cities but it hasn’t really successful to us. What we find that when (people) have their roots here, they’re more apt to stay.”
Ontario’s Minister of Labour, Training and Skills and Development Monte McNaughton was on hand for the announcement, and says work has to be done break the stigma that exists and show people that jobs in the skilled trades are meaningful, challenging and good paying.
“It is the number one concern that businesses raise; they are having trouble recruiting workers with the proper skills,” McNaughton says. “So our focus as a government has been exclusively on building the workforce that we need for today and for the years down the road.
Six apprentices will get one-on-one training with instructors from St. Clair College.
