Hutchies has been pretty serious about the business of growing the numbers of construction apprentices in its own business for probably over 100 years. We currently have over 80 Hutchies apprentices under training across our 25 teams along with another 15 external apprentices and growing.

Since 2007, we have graduated over 200 apprentices with an extraordinary completion rate of over 95% when the industry average is less than 50%. We have achieved that record through a combination of only recruiting new apprentices who have completed a pre-trade course and once they start, providing them with day to day mentoring and training via our Apprentice Development Coordinators.

Hutchies’ Team Leader, Russell Fryer, recently presented Benson Thomas, Ben Ridley and Luke Evans with their Certificate III in Carpentry. All three apprentices completed on the same day. They all agreed that this occasion was an important stepping stone in their careers with Hutchies.

Benson and Ben are currently working on St Luke’s at Woolloongabba and Luke is working on the Garland project at Tweed and all three are continuing their studies through the Hutchies Future Leaders program.

More recently, we opened this service up to our subcontractors as well and are growing the number of external apprentices we recruit, train and mentor for our subbies.

We see the requirement for recruits to have completed a pre-trade program as so important, that in 2010 we set up our own Registered Training Organisation called the Gold Coast School of Construction (GCSC) which delivers training to over 200 school-based and post school based students every year. With the right participants, the GCSC achieves a full time employment placement for over 70% of its graduating students.

Recently we also signed up to the Federal Government’s Employment Parity Initiative which aims to get indigenous workers into construction and other industries. Our program Statim-Yaga (means start work) will see us help 350 indigenous workers achieve full time employment (including apprenticeships) over the next three and a half years with our own teams and our many subbies and suppliers.

We are always looking for candidates who are passionate, enthusiastic and committed to a career in construction. So if you know of someone who might fit into our program, get them to visit the GCSC website and go to the Apply page. There are over 70 careers in construction, including apprenticeships, waiting for the right candidate!