I am president of the NSW Young Water Professionals (YWPs) in Australia. The YWPS are a specialist interest group within the Australian Water Association (AWA). We encourage AWA members under 35 years of age to register. Nationally our membership represents around 13% of total AWA membership. This is a fair indicator of the percentage of water professionals under 35 in the broader Australian water industry, and the story is similar in developed nations across the world.
In Australia we are expecting 20-30% of water engineers (and closer to 50% of operations staff) to retire in the next 5-10 years. The next generation of water industry professionals just doesn’t exist.
Firms are reluctant to train the large number of graduates required to replace them, because training is costly in the short term, and because retention is so difficult they are unlikely to reap the full benefit. To lapse into eco-speak, there is a definite market failure present here…training young professionals results in positive externalities and so training tends to be under delivered by a free market.
However the user-pays philosophy is so ingrained that industry bodies find it difficult to look past it and see what has to be done.
This is of course great news for young water professionals globally. Your professional future is assured…but you might find yourself doing the work of three people…if you aren’t already!
