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Clip description
This clip shows a range of apprenticeships offered by Australia Post in 1989.
Curator’s notes
Prior to 1975, the Postmaster General’s Department (PMG) controlled posts and telegraphs. In 1975 the PMG split into the Australian Postal Commission (Australia Post) and the Australian Telecommunications Commission (Telecom Australia – now Telstra). The PMG and its offshoots of Australia Post and Telecom, with their engineering and transportation workshops, had traditionally been major providers of apprenticeships in technical trades. Thousands and thousands of young people acquired training via these government institutions.
By 1989 the apprenticeship system was already in decline in Australia, with the focus shifting from the provision of long-term skill formation to the meeting of short-term skill gaps. The public sector however still represented a reliable source of technical training. As the clip shows, Australia Post at the time was offering apprentice work to carpenters, sheetmetal workers, motor mechanics, fitters and turners, painters, signwriters, electrical fitters and mechanics, locksmiths and postal technicians. Today, Australia Post’s outsourcing of equipment installation and maintenance has obviated much of its technical trades training requirements and responsibilities.
