The best thing about bricklaying is working outside, get to work with your mates, I'm
my own boss, making good money, and the best thing is lots of free time.
There are heaps of reasons why you should think about a career in the brick and block
laying industry.
Take a look at the top ten:
You're working outdoors.
Forget about being trapped in an office, in this business you're working outside in different
locations every time you start a new job.
You're work place is continually changing keeping it fresh and interesting.
At this place I'm looking over the river all day you know you've a perfect view.
It's outdoors, it's clean air, it's fresh.
Not stuck indoors, getting sick from everyone else.
You get a qualification.
Brick and block laying is a craft that takes time and skill to master.
Bricklaying is not just putting a brick on top of each other, you've got to think about
it and make sure it's all right.
Once you have and can demonstrate those skills you get the all important qualification that
tells the rest of the world that you've learned the craft and can do the job to the highest
professional standards of the industry.
The building industry and the bricklaying industry, I think, basically underpins most
economic sort of growth throughout the world.
And see the results of your work.
If you're a person who wants to at the end of the day look back and see what they've
done with their hands and have a craft, I think it's very rewarding.
Bricks are on display for all to see for a long, long time.
You can go past houses and other buildings and tell everyone that you know that I built
that and it's going to be there for hundreds of years.
That pride of creating something that's good quality, that you can be proud of, will stand
the test of time.
Bricks and blocks can be used very creatively to produce outstanding feature elements in
all types of buildings.
So, if you've got what it takes to produce creative works like this you could be
building structures that people marvel at for generations to come.
There's a lot of time put into the detail of the brickwork in creating something beautiful.
And money.
Your parents are right, it doesn't grow on trees but you can make your own pile of it.
In the future, I'll be earning a lot of money so hopefully I'll be able to buy my own house.
Bought a brand new car, you know, computer all that sort of stuff, you know TV, Xbox,
Playstation.
I've got three houses and two cars at the moment and still wanting more.
It sets you up for life.
And you get the opportunity to be your own boss.
You can go from apprentice to self employed sub contractor in just a few short years.
You've already got the knowledge over your apprenticeship to go and start that, you can
be a leading hand or a foreman and run your jobs, start your own business.
You've got a lot of different paths you can go down just from being a bricklayer.
It's easy and plenty of people have done it.
And you've got freedom to travel.
It's given me a lot of freedom to travel.
I've been able to travel to Europe for three months last year and still come back and get
straight into work.
If you're a bricklayer trained in Australia you can lay bricks in America or England or
you can work in construction in those places.
With your qualification and trowel under your belt, you're all packed for a paid adventure
wherever you go.
Get a passport, and your trowel and there's work everywhere.
The world's your oyster.
And you're part of a team.
Brick and block laying is done by gangs, teams of people who work together and support each
other to achieve the best result.
There's nothing as satisfying as working with your mates to get the job done to the highest
professional standards.
It's great working in a team, you meet some great characters on the site here.
You really bond with each other and get up to a few shenanigans.
It's just like working with your mates all day really, it's not even like work.
As a female on site it's pretty good, but the guys whinge a lot.
And keeping fit.
Forget about paying to join a gym or trying to find thirty minutes to keep fit, brick
and block layers are getting paid to work out every day.
Being a brickie, it's healthy, you're moving around all day you're not sitting on a chair
typing on a keyboard.
I'm a lot fitter than what I used to be.
The work builds muscle, increases stamina and improves your level of fitness.
Don't have to go to the gym after work because you are doing all your work during the day.
It goes a long way to picking up the chicks.
Then again, you could become a builder.
There's no better way to make the journey from where you are now to having your own
building company than one brick at a time.
Where they are in control of their destiny, whether it's the starting hours they work,
the type of work they do, whether it's the housing sector, the commercial sector, the
mining sector, overseas.
Having a trade is probably the most common pathway to other jobs in the building industry.
Bricklaying gives you the freedom of choice.
You have a career path you can follow, you can choose to be a self employed contractor,
a tradesperson, running your own building company, an architect, a millionaire, an estimator,
whatever.
The career paths are endless.
I started as a bricklayer, we now run a business that last year turned over a billion dollars.
I particularly came off a farm so I did like outdoors and manual work, physical work.
I chose bricklaying over carpentry which was my other choice.
I did get accepted into university to do building but decided to do a trade.
The bricklaying won over the day because I thought it was a little bit more physical
and it's been fantastic.
It's given us a lot of trappings in life and a lot of personal gain as well as satisfaction.
And there's a skills shortage.
There just aren't enough skilled brick and block layers in Australia.
Since I started three years ago I haven't been out of work one day.
We're getting bricklayers ringing up asking us for apprentices and so we need to find
like-minded people to engage with the trade and have a fulfilling career that I can highly recommend.
So young people with an industry approved qualification are in huge demand.
For a young guy making his mark, if he can prove himself to his builder he's a very valuable
commodity.
You've always got a safety representative for your own trade and for the whole site
so you know every day at work you're going to come in and you're definitely going to
go home, not get hurt.
So what's involved in doing a brick and block laying apprenticeship?
Entry requirements vary but generally you need to have completed Year 10, you also need
a good pair of hands that you like working with and you need a good brain so you can
plan the work and work the plan.
There are three main ways to become an apprentice.
You find an employer and get indentured as an apprentice for three or four years depending
on which state you're in, while also doing all the necessary units at TAFE or another
registered training provider.
Or you can do a full time pre apprenticeship training course through a registered training provider.
The third option is to do an Australian school based apprenticeship.
For details about how this works talk to your careers teacher or get in touch with the Australian
Brick and Blocklaying Training Foundation.
We have a program that supports the employment of apprentices, so we support their training
and employment, we subsidise bricklayers for taking on apprentices, and we also do a lot
of promotion to ensure that the industry understands the opportunity that bricklaying provides
to young people.
The Australian Brick and Blocklaying Training Foundation offers varying financial incentives
to employers and apprentices in each state.
ABBTF can provide a lot of assistance to you if you want to become a bricklayer.
We can give you a trowel in your hand, we can tell you where the courses are to start
learning the trade, we can give you employment opportunities, we know the industry and we
know where the demands are for young people.
So if you're up to it, we can help you a lot to get into the trade.
The foundation also helps employers find apprentices and helps apprentices find employers.
I still look when I go up to my hometown, these days and I know there are houses that
we built, there's walls that we built, the entrance to the hospital that's got walls
that we created.
All of those things, you know my father died earlier this year, but there's a legacy of
what he's built within that community.
It's wonderful.
The lifestyle's great, you get to do whatever you want, whenever you want basically.
Everyone's always keen to teach you and show you not just bricklaying but life lessons
as well.
I don't know what I'm in for but bring it on.
Let's do it!
Become a bricklayer.
It's awesome.
For assistance call 1300 66 44 96 or visit our website.