Most of our industry is small businesses. Their reality is that they don't have an HR department and they don't think about shortages until they need to hire somebody. A big challenge is that they still look at hiring an apprentice as a cost rather than look at the investment in building their labour supply. They're more apt to pay a guy down the street a little bit more to come to work for them rather than hire the apprentice.
There's a lot around awareness that the labour supply is tight. Small employers don't always realize until they go out to hire that the supply is very tight. Concerning awareness that this is an investment that is going to pay off for them, I mentioned that CAF has done really good work. We've tried to get that knowledge out to employers as well.
As well, concerning the job readiness of apprentices, anything that can be done to enhance an apprentice's appreciation of workplace expectations would help. There's the disconnect between employers and the education training system. Employers generally want to train. They're set up to realize that this is a role for them, but they really need the apprentice to come in on time, have a good attitude, and have communication skills, because that apprentice is going to be in front of the client or the customer at some point. There too we see the importance of the essential skills piece.