T&T’s superior welding talent set to fuel UK’s nuclear future

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

As Trinidad and To­ba­go’s welders face shrink­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties in the do­mes­tic en­er­gy sec­tor, a grow­ing pool of high­ly trained welders is be­ing tapped for one of Eu­rope’s most am­bi­tious in­fra­struc­ture builds – the Unit­ed King­dom’s £37 bil­lion nu­clear pow­er pro­gramme.

Re­cruit­ment is now un­der­way at Point Ga­le­o­ta, Guayagua­yare, where com­bi­na­tion welders are be­ing trade-test­ed for work on a project ex­pect­ed to pow­er mil­lions of homes and an­chor Britain’s tran­si­tion to low-car­bon en­er­gy.

The op­por­tu­ni­ty of­fers sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er earn­ings and in­ter­na­tion­al ex­po­sure, even as con­cerns linger about the po­ten­tial loss of skilled labour at home.

Bren­don Smith, op­er­a­tions di­rec­tor at in­ter­na­tion­al re­cruit­ment firm Job Bridge Glob­al, who came to Trinidad and To­ba­go last week for the re­cruit­ment process, said there was suf­fi­cient tal­ent in Trinidad and To­ba­go to meet both lo­cal and over­seas de­mand.

“We’re in Trinidad at the mo­ment, trade test­ing com­bi­na­tion welders,” Smith said.

“Trinida­di­an skilled welders are some of the best in the world – UK opin­ion test­ed and proven al­ready.”

Dur­ing an ex­clu­sive tour of the test­ing site, welders were work­ing with spe­cialised ma­te­ri­als un­der strict con­di­tions, re­flect­ing the stan­dards re­quired for nu­clear-grade con­struc­tion.

UK labour short­ages dri­ving de­mand

Smith said the re­cruit­ment push is be­ing dri­ven by acute labour short­ages in the UK and across Eu­rope.

“There’s a huge re­quire­ment for jobs in the UK. There’s a skilled short­age, and the project needs to be done, so we’re now in Trinidad try­ing to fill that gap,” he said.

He dis­missed fears of a mass ex­o­dus, ar­gu­ing that the process is se­lec­tive and could ul­ti­mate­ly strength­en the lo­cal in­dus­try.

“I don’t think we’ve even scratched the sur­face of peo­ple that are avail­able,” Smith said.

“If a group of welders go on to the UK, the next gen­er­a­tion will be able to step up and get op­por­tu­ni­ties they might not have had be­fore.”

The pro­gramme, how­ev­er, comes with trade-offs. Un­der cur­rent visa arrange­ments, work­ers can­not per­ma­nent­ly re­lo­cate with their fam­i­lies. While rel­a­tives may vis­it, spous­es are not per­mit­ted to work and chil­dren can­not at­tend school in the UK.

“It’s tough, and we have to man­age ex­pec­ta­tions,” Smith said.

“But the work­ers are per­ma­nent­ly em­ployed, they get paid leave, and they can re­turn home for ex­tend­ed pe­ri­ods.”

He al­so sought to al­lay con­cerns about ex­ploita­tion, stress­ing that work­ers are not re­quired to pay re­cruit­ment fees.

“Can­di­dates do not pay Job Bridge Glob­al at any point. The visa fees are cov­ered, the le­gal fees are cov­ered, and the flights are cov­ered,” he said.

Re­mit­tances and eco­nom­ic im­pact

He said, be­yond in­di­vid­ual gain, the pro­gramme could have wider eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits. With wages earned in British pounds, re­mit­tances may help ease for­eign ex­change pres­sures lo­cal­ly.

“Good welders work­ing in the UK pro­vide British pounds back to Trinidad banks,” Smith ex­plained.

The nu­clear plant is ex­pect­ed to sup­ply rough­ly sev­en per cent of the UK’s elec­tric­i­ty and pow­er up to six mil­lion homes, as coun­tries ac­cel­er­ate the shift away from fos­sil fu­els.

Yet while Trinida­di­an welders are be­ing re­cruit­ed to build low-car­bon in­fra­struc­ture abroad, Be­de Williams, an en­gi­neer­ing con­sul­tant with Job Bridge Glob­al, said many welders are strug­gling to find steady em­ploy­ment at home.

He said the mis­match has forced some skilled trades­men in­to un­re­lat­ed work.

“Based on the econ­o­my at this present mo­ment, there are a num­ber of welders…work­ing man­u­al work, do­ing ma­son­ry, car­pen­try, plumb­ing, taxi and gar­den­ing be­cause there is no work for welders in Trinidad at this mo­ment,” Williams said.

“That is the re­al­i­ty. We have welders with cer­tifi­cates and no work. They can’t get the ex­pe­ri­ence, and with­out ex­pe­ri­ence, they can’t progress.”

Lo­cal train­ing pipeline un­der pres­sure

He added that while some have al­ready mi­grat­ed to the Unit­ed States and Cana­da, there is still no im­me­di­ate risk of a short­age lo­cal­ly, even with dis­cus­sions around restart­ing the Pointe-à-Pierre re­fin­ery.

“Train­ing providers are rolling out welders every year, every two years, and there’s no place for them,” Williams said.

The re­cruit­ment dri­ve is be­ing fa­cil­i­tat­ed lo­cal­ly by Hy­drotech Ltd.

Its man­ag­ing di­rec­tor, Tri­cia Lynch, said the ini­tia­tive high­lights both the strength of the coun­try’s tech­ni­cal work­force and the struc­tur­al gaps in the econ­o­my.

“Skills like weld­ing are not every­day skills. It’s gen­er­al­ly project-based work,” Lynch said.

“When the in­dus­try is slow, the op­por­tu­ni­ties are lim­it­ed.”

She ar­gued that long-term so­lu­tions lie in strength­en­ing tech­ni­cal and vo­ca­tion­al ed­u­ca­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly at the sec­ondary school lev­el.

“Not every­body can be be­hind a com­put­er. Skills train­ing is some­thing we need to push more,” she said, warn­ing that with­out ear­ly in­ter­ven­tion, many young men risk drift­ing in­to un­em­ploy­ment or crime.

“If we don’t hold them to a mir­ror where they can see them­selves in a bet­ter po­si­tion, they will not learn. We will lose them.”

No brain drain con­cern, says in­dus­try

While the out­ward flow of tal­ent has raised con­cerns about a pos­si­ble brain drain, in­dus­try stake­hold­ers in­sist the move­ment re­flects a deep­er im­bal­ance be­tween train­ing and job cre­ation.

Chair­man of Guaracara Re­fin­ing Com­pa­ny, which is in charge of the shut­tered Pointe-à-Pierre re­fin­ery, Gow­tam Ma­haraj, said the ex­port of skilled welders should not be viewed as a loss, but as a re­flec­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s long-stand­ing strength in tech­ni­cal train­ing.

“We are hap­py to lend a hand­ful of welders to the world,” Ma­haraj said.

He point­ed to the lega­cy of Petrotrin’s ap­pren­tice­ship pro­gramme, which he de­scribed as a bench­mark for in­dus­try train­ing.

“Ar­eas cov­ered were valve pack­ing, pump re­pair, weld­ing, plant fit­ting—a jour­ney­man’s pro­gramme. We were the in­cu­ba­tor for skill-based train­ing for in­dus­try,” he said.

Fu­ture of tech­ni­cal train­ing and re­fin­ery restart

Ma­haraj dis­missed con­cerns about a brain drain, not­ing that cur­rent pol­i­cy di­rec­tion sup­ports both aca­d­e­m­ic and tech­ni­cal de­vel­op­ment.

“The test­ing and sub­se­quent re­cruit­ment for a for­eign en­ti­ty isn’t a point for wor­ry,” he said, cit­ing ini­tia­tives such as the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Ap­pren­tice­ship Pro­gramme (PLI­AP), de­signed to pro­duce job-ready trades­men.

He added that plans for a tech­ni­cal and vo­ca­tion­al uni­ver­si­ty, pri­or learn­ing as­sess­ment and recog­ni­tion (PLAR), and work­force as­sess­ment cen­tres are all part of ex­pand­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties in the sec­tor.

As for the long-moot­ed restart of the re­fin­ery, Ma­haraj said re­viv­ing struc­tured ap­pren­tice­ship train­ing must be cen­tral to any re­open­ing.

“Petrotrin has been the lead for flag­ship ap­pren­tice­ship, and that is a must-do up­on restart of the re­fin­ery,” he said.

For now, he said, as welders line up for a chance to work on one of the world’s largest en­er­gy projects, the mo­ment un­der­scores both the glob­al de­mand for Trinidad and To­ba­go’s tech­ni­cal tal­ent and the ur­gent need to cre­ate sus­tain­able op­por­tu­ni­ties at home.