Why is there a big shortage of welders?

upnortheast

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Northumberland
Doing the dairy upgrade last year a lad came out from a pipeline company to weld stainless steel pipes for us.

He was saying he had a regular calls with offers of jobs in the UK & abroad for silly money. He had a baby on the way so was not moving in the short term.
 

Runs Like a Deere

Member
Mixed Farmer
I don't think it has anything to do with requiring certificates, a lot of industrial welding will require the welders to qualify against a specific weld procedure so having generic certificates probably are not a blocker.

I would say its classed as dirty manual labour with relatively poor pay in comparison to other options and it is just not seen as desirable work these days to the masses. Same reason that it can be difficult to find good labour on farms these days.
 
Don’t know about in agriculture but when I did my apprenticeship ( heavy engineering)
Welders did a full four year apprenticeship
Lack of manufacturing hence lack of apprenticeships may be the answer
I remember vickers in barrow used to take 300 apprentice’s a year
Them opportunities are long gone
It's not just lack of manufacturing It's also lack of apprentices. There's too many jobs which pay reasonable wages with very little training needed if any. Low wage of an apprenticeship for 3 or 4 years doesn't appeal to young uns when their mates are stacking shelves for double what they can get. By the time they realise the long term gain which could have come from short term pain they are too far though life to step back to a peanuts wage.
 

Wood field

Member
Livestock Farmer
It's not just lack of manufacturing It's also lack of apprentices. There's too many jobs which pay reasonable wages with very little training needed if any. Low wage of an apprenticeship for 3 or 4 years doesn't appeal to young uns when their mates are stacking shelves for double what they can get. By the time they realise the long term gain which could have come from short term pain they are too far though life to step back to a peanuts wage.
I am going back to 1980, I was an apprentice mechanical fitter , there was vickers, glaxo, bowater Scott, plus a myriad of supporting small firms
Lads from our village either went in to farming or industry, not many would want to work in the super market, in fact I remember my folks shopping in Ulverston, no big supermarkets until Asda opened in Barrow, but that’s another story , plus the fact youngsters would sooner be at uni than get dirty hands
As an aside .. I went on to do my hnd and was chief engineer in a dairy in Manchester, I approached a director one day re some funding for some training, he actually put his hand up and said “ your here to mend things , how dare you talk to me about funding”
I quit soon after and went self employed taking great pleasure to bill them a day a week to bale them out of the sh*t
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 79 42.5%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 65 34.9%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.1%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 6 3.2%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,287
  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
Top