-Ben Connolly
Industry for me started when I was 16 with a part time job in a plastics manufacturing plant. The company had some fascinating processes. I wasn’t allowed to do any of the ‘fun’ stuff though, my job was to sweep the driveway and process production waste.

At 16 I only had a few years left of school and needed to start making some plans for what I would do afterwards. The good old gap year tends to be well advertised towards the end of school. This was all pencilled in for me until I learnt about an engineering degree majoring in Industrial Management.

The course was a good fit giving me the base skills to do the stuff I had been watching others do in the factory.
I was the only person who enrolled that year for the course, and with no further enrolments in the following year or the year after, the course was cancelled. Why weren’t people enrolling? Lack of knowledge about industry is my best guess.

Most youth won’t have an insight to the potential careers available in industry. I was fortunate that I was given a job in industry which gave me the inspiration to take my studies further and consider manufacturing and production as a career. The job opportunity was a gateway that led me to where I am now.

I know few people who have followed a similar path into industry and even fewer who are getting the opportunities I got at the age I was.

It is becoming a big issue in some industries that there is no young following through to take the positions of their elders. Should we be putting more effort into attracting young blood into industry as a contingency for the future?

Could we be offering base level jobs to students and school leavers rather than them stocking shelves in a supermarket?
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