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Summer's almost here. The weather is getting better. High school students are thinking about vacation, and their parents are thinking about what's next — university? A solid future in law or medicine? With luck, some of these kids will be thinking about a solid future in the skilled trades. And, with luck, so will some of their parents.

Unfortunately, some parents still think skilled trades work is a second-rate career and discourage their children from going into the trades. That attitude has to change. I may get 1,000 e-mails a week from people who've had a bad contracting experience, but there are also a lot of good guys out there — take me for example. I love my job. I learn about new products and techniques every day and construction has allowed me to make good money, even before television.

There are young people willing to work in the trades — lots of them. But the problem is, we aren't training enough of them.

Why is that? It's our attitudes — the attitude in the school system and among some parents that skilled trades are not "worthy" careers — and the attitude of some employers that think someone else can train tomorrow's workers.

Careers in the trades pay well, offer interesting work and lead to many opportunities. Many of Canada's most successful companies were founded by skilled trades people — Frank Stronach of Magna International Inc. was a tool and die maker before founding his company. Now he employs hundreds of Canadians.

In 1963, Jobst Gellert, a journeyman mould master, founded Mold-Masters. It is headquartered in Georgetown, Ont., and now has 1,000 employees and seven manufacturing plants around the world.

There are many other examples of trades people using their skills to start successful businesses, whether they are small two-person shops or large companies.

So if careers in the trades are great, why aren't young people flooding into them? In many cases they want to and can't find jobs. Even though there's a skilled trades shortage, a lot of employers aren't willing to train the workers that they need. This is another attitude that has to change.

I get e-mails every week from kids who want to go into the trades but can't find an employer to hire them as an apprentice. Lots of students look for an apprenticeship position for months before finding one — and I'm sure some kids give up and stop looking. When that happens Canada has lost a skilled trades person.

The fact is that only 18 per cent of Canadian employers who could have an apprentice bother to hire one. Why don't they? Where do they think tomorrow's workers will come from? Unless that attitude changes, Canada can't solve its skilled trades shortage.

The government could help solve this problem — why not offer greater incentives to employers to hire apprentices? The tax incentives available for employers now aren't large.

Even though we already have a serious skilled trades shortage, our governments subsidize a university degree far more than they subsidize an employer training an apprentice. The way I see it, an employer who takes on an apprentice is doing the same thing as the university — giving the student the education and skills to become a productive member of Canadian society. So why isn't government doing something to balance out the incentives?

Employers need to adjust their attitudes. Many seem to think they'll lose money training an apprentice, or that an apprentice will leave the company and move on so there's no "payback" for the training they provide. But a study done last year on 15 trades by the Canadian Apprenticeship Forum showed that the overall return on hiring an apprentice was $1.38 for every $1 spent on the apprentice, including all indirect costs. That's a 38-per-cent return — a pretty good investment.

According to the Canadian Construction Association, Canada has a shortage of between 25,000 and 60,000 construction workers — and the shortage is going to get worse over the next 10 to 15 years as older workers retire. The Conference Board of Canada predicts that by 2020, Canada will be short a million skilled workers.

Many people think it isn't their problem, because maybe they aren't doing a renovation, or their kids aren't going to study a trade.

But I'll tell you, this shortage costs all of us because it affects our country's economic growth. It's everybody's problem and we all need an attitude adjustment.

The shortage of skilled trade workers costs all of us — consumers pay more for skilled trade services, such as plumbers and contractors, and wait longer for those services to be available. Or they end up hiring bad contractors and unqualified tradespeople — and the cost of that is high, both in dollars and pain.

It's time for Canadian parents, educators, government and employers to take note and start helping to solve the skilled trades shortage.

Mike Holmes is the host of Holmes on Homes on HGTV. For more information, go to www.holmesonhomes.com