Rise of the tradies: Record numbers sign up as apprentices
25 Apr, 2021 05:00 PM
7 minutes to read
Building and Construction Industry Training Organisation students on a tour in Havelock North. Photo / Paul Taylor
Building and Construction Industry Training Organisation students on a tour in Havelock North. Photo / Paul Taylor
More school leavers are training to become builders, electricians and plumbers: apprenticeships in traditional trades have nearly doubled in the past year.
Data from the Ministry of Education shows the number of new apprentices under the age of 18 jumped from 460 in the six months from August 2019 to 810 for the same period in 2020.
This is supported by Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) data for enrolments in tertiary and vocational study that shows a 17.6 per cent increase from December 2019 to December 2020. The total numbers went from 45,155 in 2019 and 57,035 in 2020.
Māori trades start-up raises $500k, sparks interest from venture capitalists
28 Feb, 2021 04:00 PM
3 minutes to read
Josh Faraimo and Jarome Cavubati, co-founders of Kwotimation. Photo / Supplied
Aimee Shaw is a business reporter focusing on retail, small businessaimee.shaw@nzherald.co.nz@AceeyShaw
The founders of an automated quotation platform designed for tradies are bucking the capital funding trend they say typically favours men and those from Pākehā backgrounds. Tiler Josh Faraimo, co-founder of Kwotimation, which he started with mate Jarome Cavubati, has successfully raised $500,000 in a pre-seed capital round and attracted the attention of multiple angel investors.
The Auckland pair s technology that addresses the most common bugbear for tradies - creating a quote and securing the job - was designed with tilers in mind, but will be expanded further to cater for other tradespeople.
News by Alexis Carey  A school principal has thrown his support behind the gang of thugs filmed savagely beating tradies during a wild rampage earlier this week. But soon after their arrival at the school for at-risk teens, a group of up to 10 students began surrounding the men and verbally abusing them, with footage of the incident livestreamed to Instagram. One of the students smashed the front windscreen of the tradiesâ work car. Picture: Instagram The incident soon escalated, with around six teens seen throwing punches at the men while they are trapped in a corner, amid shouts of bomb him, bomb that motherf ⦠and keep going .