The company has been in business since the early 1970s, starting as a small rural machinery, maintenance, repair and modification workshop. It is located at Bowhill South Australia, not far from Murray Bridge, and about 124km from Adelaide.
Bowhill Engineering employs around 60 staff with about 14 apprentices working in engineering fabrication and one trainee in the office. Two trainees working in surface preparation and coating were also recently graduated.
The company is committed to employing four metal fabrication apprentices each year to develop a pipeline of talent. The financial incentives are an important factor in those plans, because they help contribute to the cost of TAFE training.
Bowhill Engineering’s relatively remote location can pose challenges with recruitment. To help with apprentice recruitment, the company has developed good relations with local schools and offer regular work experience placements each year. The regional location means the company recruits from quite a wide area. Currently there are four apprentices from outside the local Murraylands area. For apprentices who are under 18 or don’t have a licence, a carpooling arrangement to help get to and from work is provided. Training takes place at the regional TAFE SA Murray Bridge.
More careers promotion is needed - for the industry and for Bowhill Engineering. It has been working with the Australian Steel Institute (ASI) in developing initiatives such as student resources and careers promotion activities, as the industry had no regular representation at careers events such as a university or other industry groups would. Recent improvements including state career event participation now helps with raising the Steel Industry profile with young people to feed this industry’s trade skills shortages and future work pipeline.
Bowhill Engineering has a good relationship with their local TAFE. It is aware that there are plans in South Australia for new accelerated apprenticeships reducing the apprenticeship completion time to 36 months. The company is generally supportive but feels a greater employer contribution via internal, structured training will be required to support current Certificate III Engineering (Fabrication) training and has already implemented changes with internal workforce training in preparation for this.
Apprenticeships and traineeships underpin the pipeline of skills needed to deliver some of the biggest priorities facing our nation. In an environment of widespread skills and workforce shortages, a strong apprenticeship and traineeship system is more important than ever.
