6000 apprentices wanted in construction-related trades

Around 6,000 apprentices are employed in the building trades: These include professions such as carpenters, glaziers, tilers, stonemasons, floorers, wallpaperers and thermal insulators. The demand for trainees is high: 6,000 additional trainees are being sought. Josef Muchitsch, head of the Bau-Holz trade union, and Martin Greiner, federal guild master of the auxiliary construction trades, gave this number yesterday at a press conference in Vienna. Greiner is also the state guild master in Upper Austria.

According to a study by the Institute for Demoscopy and Data Analysis, the satisfaction of apprentices, teachers and parents in the building trades is high. The number of those who break off the apprenticeship or leave the industry after training is low. Only seven percent of the apprentices have a fixed plan to change industry after their training. At least 16 percent do not want to grow old in construction.

There is room for improvement when it comes to the number of training companies: 35 percent of the employers surveyed do not provide training. Greiner also recalled that many employees will be retiring in the coming years: “Who will then thermally renovate everything?”