I guess one way to think about it is that it's reflecting the underlying preferences we all have for certain lifestyles, in a sense the non-pecuniary aspects of educational pathways. Any kind of model that's trying to predict demand going forward—these kinds of effects could be modelled into simulations. In a nutshell, I think to be fair, some of the recent proposed immigration changes move in the opposite direction, like the proposed federal skilled trades program by CIC. To be fair, I'm not saying this trend is continuing, but the trend over the previous few decades was pushing people, in a sense, away from apprenticeship preferences as they're formulated in childhood and in family homes.
On December 4th, 2012. See this statement in context.