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Candor3 See Shortage Of Engineering Contractors, Particularly Women

Friday 24 June 2016, 2:09PM

By Beckie Wright

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Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Steven Joyce recently released a report at an Auckland University engineering lecture, telling the 40-odd students: "Your country needs you. Hurry up and get qualified, right? No pressure," he quipped. Joyce has picked engineering as the number one area which needs more students coming through - and says he's hoping to boost engineering students by about 500 a year. New Zealand's been under-rewarding universities for encouraging an engineering career for years, resulting in a shortfall of engineers in the country and a dependency on imported talent, he said.

John Gardiner, sole Director at Candor3 also recently reported on the difficulty in finding engineering contractors to carry out works. As he said, given the continuing strong drivers in the housing market, it was no surprise to see engineering high up the list of occupations cited as having the best chance for students securing employment. Continuing with this trend, John wrote, “Engineering, and also Surveying and Town Planning, are exciting, varied and challenging careers with great opportunities for development and advancement. Unfortunately I think many companies are doing poorly developing their talent in the workplace. I have recently had the chance to interview and work with several students and graduates and have been impressed by the calibre of the people that the profession is attracting. However, sadly, many of these graduates enter the workplace full of enthusiasm and keen to apply their skills in their chosen career as they should but find that their initial experiences in the workplace are a far cry from the expectations they held.”

 It would appear that companies have a responsibility to provide appropriate ongoing training and career development to their staff, and Candor3 have been doing this for some time now. However, they also see the under-representation of women in the industry. As John says, “Several female students / graduates that I have been in contact with recently have impressed me immensely. They were excited about the work they were doing and clearly had bright futures, yet ours is an industry that does not seem to attract women overall. It is unfortunate that this is the case when New Zealand needs engineers and yet we seemingly can’t attract a large portion of our population to participate. I have no idea why this as I have worked with some outstanding women engineers, surveyors and planners who put many of their male counterparts to shame.”

For more information on Candor3 and urban design auckland, please go to http://www.candor3.co.nz .