Tony Rhodes gave up advertising for skilled tradespeople a while ago.
"If I was to run an ad in any of those trades (electrical, plumbing and roofing) tomorrow, I'd barely expect a response," the owner of Mullane Group said.
These days he has 65 apprentices as part of a strategy to build the company's skilled workforce from the ground up.
Like many employers across the region, Mr Rhodes says the shortage of skilled workers is dire.
A recent Business NSW survey found three in four Hunter businesses were struggling to find the workers they need.
The survey of more than 500 businesses also found 50 per cent of employers across the state expect skills shortages to cost them customers or commercial opportunities.
Mr Rhodes cited the hangover from an era when all school leavers were encouraged to go to university combined with the length of apprenticeships as key contributors to the current crisis.
"I think the system's completely outdated. Our processes there haven't moved with the times," he said.
"It's still a four-year apprenticeship, kids these days see a long journey between leaving school and actually becoming a tradesperson. So it's a bit of a disincentive."
While there have been efforts to encourage more school students to pursue trade courses in recent years, Mr Rhodes said there was still too much emphasis on university education.
"In my perspective, the job of education is to help kids identify their strengths and encourage them down a path where those strengths will be appreciated," he said.
"If we set them up to fail by trying to get them to get a university degree that they're never going to excel in, then they drop out as a failure, where's the incentive then to go and do four years of an apprenticeship."
Fuelling the trades crisis is the growth in demand across the Hunter. As a result tradespeople from the Central Coast and even Sydney are moving in to fill the void.
"We're a much bigger city than we were 20 years ago. We haven't kept pace. It's not that the flow of trades has dried up, it just hasn't kept pace with the growth of the city," Mr Rhodes said.
"If I put an ad on Seek I will get a dozen applicants from the Central Coast and nil from the Hunter.
"The Central Coast people would rather commute to the Hunter than they would to Western Sydney, but there are almost zero applicants from the Hunter."
Business Hunter president Glenn Thornton said the growth of the water, energy and transport sectors was creating excellent career opportunities for young people.
"There are great careers that people can have in the trades now, and it doesn't mean they can't at some point switch over via bridging course to a university degree," he said.
"If we are going to increase manufacturing in the Hunter, TAFE is going to have to ramp up the courses it is offering to be able to train the apprentices that will be needed in those industries."
