Bomen manufacturers say job vacancies can remain unfilled for weeks if not months at a time, despite thousands of Wagga residents remaining jobless during lockdown.

Truck Art owner Terry Gibbs said the industry was still teeming with job opportunities, but that it was a constant struggle to find young people keen to pick up a trade.

"Too many people are getting assistance in too many ways and they don't want to work, it's as simple as that. When they leave school they get given money, and that's the worst thing you can do to a kid," Mr Gibbs said.

"When I left school there wasn't the dole, so you had to go get a job. You'd ride your bike for miles to get an interview, whereas now they're not interested in hands-on work."

Mr Gibbs said he was able to hire many really good Filipino workers, but that it was a constant challenge to find Australians who were willing to fill in the roles.

He said the same was true of the other Bomen warehouses, where they were advertising year-round for welders, mechanics, spray-painters, and other trade jobs.

Mr Gibbs said there was no shortage of apprenticeship positions even during the pandemic, and that a young person in search of job opportunities need look no further than Bomen.

"There's a lot of fellows around like me who didn't do very well at school, but we can do as well as anybody," Mr Gibbs said.

"I reckon in the future the blokes that learn all these trades will have the world at their feet, especially if you're a young bloke that wants to get ahead."

Bucking the trend is 17-year-old Blake Maher, who is a second-year spray painting apprentice at Truck Art.

Mr Maher picked up his love of the craft from his uncle, who taught him the finer points of spray painting.

"There are a lot of jobs, because it's a dying trade," Mr Maher said.

"A lot of people my age don't want to do this because it's hard."

However, Mr Maher said that he was not afraid of hard work, and that he planned to finish his apprenticeship and continue building his skills.

Wagga Stainless Steel owner David Wheeler said there had long been a skills shortage in his industry, and that it took a long time to find a trained tradesman willing to take up the role.

"We're finding it hard, even in this time," Mr Wheeler said.

"We've advertised for a fair while now, and it's really hard to even get them through the door."

Mr Wheeler said young motivated workers in Wagga are "few and far between", which he attributes to a generational divide.

"Even [my parents'] generation complained about my generation - it's still the same old, same old," Mr Wheeler said.

"With younger people it's about getting that work ethic. Finding someone with the enthusiasm to come up and want to try and do it - that's a hard one."