Wilmar Sugar, NQ Bulk Ports seeking apprentices, Civil Safety opens new training facility
A new training centre for potential miners, plus apprenticeships in sugar and the logistics industries are helping put young people on a path to success.
Mackay
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The Mackay-Whitsunday region’s sugar and logistics industries are looking out for apprentices for their 2026 uptake, while a mining specialist training site has opened a new facility.
And channelling more students into apprenticeships would not only help reduce juvenile crime but meet the future skills shortage, according to the owner of a registered training organisation based in Mackay.
Civil Safety founder Robert Kerridge has reopened an expanded Mackay facility, to teach more students, and has opened a new facility in Moranbah last month.
The company’s most popular course is a basic safety induction for miners.
Mr Kerridge said as baby boomers set to retire, it was more important than ever to target school students.
“Demographers have described it as the “retirement cliff’,” he said.
“There’s a wave of opinion that increasing quotas for foreign workers is a solution, but most of them will need to undertake some training and upskilling to meet Australian workplace standards and operations.
“I know what it’s like to struggle at school, I wasn’t a good scholar so when you find yourself in an apprenticeship that interests you it can be life changing and change a whole family’s life with someone getting a job or upskilling to get a better job. It is second chance stuff.
“If we can channel some of these kids who are just kicking dirt, to finish school, into training that piques their interest, we can make a difference. It’s finding that hook of ‘earn and learn’ and ‘no time for crime’.”
Wilmar Sugar and Renewables is closing applications for its apprenticeship program on Sunday, July 27, and has made a final call out to potential hires, highlighting some of the successes of its past cohorts.
Cory O’Shea landed a fitting and turning apprenticeship at Wilmar Sugar and Renewables Herbert mills straight out of school in 2007.
He is now an operations manager at Proserpine Mill.
“I knew I wanted to do a trade, and Mum and Dad strongly encouraged me to try for an apprenticeship at the mill,” Mr O’Shea said.
“I didn’t have a family connection to the mill, but I knew some people who worked there so I organised work experience at Victoria Mill in my own time while I was still at school and really liked it.”
North Queensland Bulk Ports Corporation is offering young people and jobseekers the chance to kickstart a trade career “by the water” with applications now open for its 2026 apprenticeship program.
Based at the Port of Mackay, NQPB said successful applicants would get hands-on experience, nationally recognised qualifications and direct employment as part of the maintenance team.
Four apprenticeships are available in the 2026 intake, including plumbing, electrical and two horticulture positions with parks and gardens.
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