Mini Moment #26 - Who is going to cut your hair when you are 70?
Ask a salon owner in Australia whether she is taking on an apprentice this year, and listen for the pause before she answers.
It is not that she has gone cold on young people. Jen has been training apprentices since she was about 21 and still loves it. Sam has had apprentices who became some of the best people she has ever worked with. The pause is about everything sitting underneath that. A wage that climbs on a timeline while the skill is still building. Eighteen months of your time before any of it comes back. Support that used to exist for owners and quietly stopped. And a salon floor that, with a smaller team, no longer needs the person who once kept the whole thing moving.
So the industry has ended up somewhere strange. Owners who genuinely want to train are turning young people away, week after week, because they cannot see the landscape they would be sending them into. Which leaves the question this episode opens on and never quite answers. If nobody is training them, who is cutting your hair in twenty years?
What we cover
- Why Australian salon owners are turning apprentices away
- The support that used to exist for training and does not anymore
- Wages rising while the skill set is still building
- What a Cert II at TAFE is delivering, and what it is not
- The myth that owners are getting kickbacks that cover the cost
- Why apprentices worked in a big salon and stopped working in a small one
- Uni students do unpaid placement, hairdressers pay for theirs
- Committing to three years when you cannot see your own next three
- What happens to the young people knocking on the door
Neither of them has the answer. Both of them would really like one.
FAQs
Why are salon owners not taking on apprentices anymore?
The cost is front loaded and the return has moved. Wages rise on a set timeline while the skill set is still building, and the first 18 months are almost entirely the owner's time.
Is there an apprentice shortage in the Australian hairdressing industry?
Fewer salons are taking apprentices on, so fewer are coming through and fewer are staying. Owners are turning young people away because they cannot see the industry they would be sending them into.
Do salon owners get paid to take on an apprentice?
Not in any meaningful way in hairdressing. Incentives have grown in other trades, mostly construction, and those employers also pay a much higher apprentice wage.
Mentioned in this episode:
💖 Celebrating Our Podcast Partner – Christophe Robin, proudly distributed by McM Imports
We’ve partnered with Christophe Robin and MCM Imports to bring you something beautiful:
➡ Experience the Christophe Robin Discovery Box — curated by pro ambassador Monique McMahon.
➡ Inside, you’ll find her handpicked favourites — the hero products she swears by in the salon.
It’s your invitation to explore the range and discover why Christophe Robin has become a quiet obsession among stylists who know their craft.
Click the link below to request your FREE Christophe Robin Discovery Box, exclusively through McM Imports. 👇
💛 A Limited Time Offer From Our Amazing Sponsor, Timely 💛
➡ Timely is the easy to use booking and payments system that puts salon owners in control of the whole client experience from the first booking to final payment.
➡ Salon Rising listeners get a 14 day free trial plus 50% off their first 3 months.
➡ And until August 1st, when you activate with Payments, you'll also get a free Touchscreen terminal, worth $349 + GST.
Use the code SALONRISING at checkout or click the link below to get started. Once you're set up, your Timely contact will take care of the rest. 👇
Transcript
'cause I'm eight years younger.
[: [: [: [: [:I think in future times, I will probably just work with young ones if there is a market to send them out into, which is what really concerns me at the moment.
[: [: [:because it's hard. It's really hard that, that there's no support for hairdressing for the owners anymore. Yeah. Like, there used to be quite a lot of support, and it was good.
[: [:It becomes exhausting.
[: [: [: [: [: [: [: [: [:Hmm. But I was very measured and waited 90 seconds before I emailed that back and sat on it.
[: [: [: [:Mm. I was like, "That's right, girlfriend." You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. Like, so I think because there's still payments going out in, in terms of, keeping apprentices on site, and this is, this is across all industries, not just our own. So incentives have increased for certain areas- Mm-hmm
mostly construction.
[: [: [: [:Mm. What are the kids supposed to do? Like, How, how do we get people to want them? What could I do that would make me want them? Because, as I've said, I actually really enjoy having apprentices. I have done that. That was part of my job since I was actually really young. Mm-hmm. I trained apprentices from the time I was, like, 22, I think it was.
21, 20, I don't know. It's been a long time. But, it is getting to the point where I just don't know if it's even conceivable for me to be able to do it.
[:Yeah. Having a huge salon, apprentices were great. Turning over, like I, when we had big salons, we always had, like when we had big numbers, we always had apprentices. We always had first year, second year, third year.
[: [:'Cause your first year, you're pretty much the chick kicker that's doing all the things. Like- Yes ... and it's, like, not in a bad way in the salon. More meaning, like, you're cleaning up every day. Yeah. You're rinsing everybody. You're cleaning bowls all day. You're doing washing all day, and that's what kept a business flowing.
But then you'd move into your second year, and you'd have to get more taught, and then in your third year, you'd get even more taught, obviously, of all the big things. Yeah. And then you move on the floor. But when the salon numbers are dwindling, because it feels easier for salon owners to have smaller teams, you don't need that person anymore.
Yeah. Like, I don't need that person anymore to make my salon run. 'Cause back in that, back then- 'Cause we can all be, like,
[: [: [: [:And it would make you more money- Yeah ... because you didn't have to do those things. Whereas now, charge appropriately. I have, shout out to you, Chloe, an amazing cleaner that comes into the salon, and those things still get done. And it might be an hour more of my time a week-
[: [: [: [:to do a trai- no, to do a- To, yeah ... like, to have an apprentice. Yeah. Because then I have to train them,
and then you're just dealing with more of that. And then as they got levels, if you're like, "Crap, I, I don't have the time. When do I put them in? When do I put models in?" And you've got to be on that. If I'm on the floor, it's not possible. Yeah. It's too hard. So they just expect a lot from us with no return for us training their workforce.
[: [: [: [: [: [: [: [: [: [: [: [: [: [: [: [: [: [:Bree was an apprentice. Like, I've had so many apprentices that I've- Yeah ... adored, caught. You know, so many different apprentices that have been, like, have stayed in the industry and have, you know, like... But I don't know.
[: [: [: [: [:I know this is a conversation that lots of people are having at the moment. I would really like to know what people think.
[:Bye.
