Thank you.
Some of the things in my initial comments have already been said, so that will help shorten things a bit. I have a few quick comments on the trade labour force itself.
I think you all know that it's around 11% to 12% of the total labour force. What's less clear perhaps is that it's stable and perhaps marginally declining. It's not a growth part of the labour force. It's important to note that only about a third of those working in trade occupations actually have any form of certification. Most other people are either apprentices or are just uncertified. They're working without having been certified.
For all levels of formal education, however, with the exception of university graduation, those in the trades tend to have higher average earnings than those in other occupations. On the other hand, on average, trade occupations have higher unemployment rates. I think you can recognize how that may relate to the seasonal and sporadic nature of some of the trade occupations.
It's already been mentioned that apprenticeship is a late-entry career path, with an average age of registration of about 26 years and of completion of about 31 years. Most apprentices have had previous work or post-secondary experience before registering. That suggests that apprenticeship is kind of a second choice, or perhaps lower than that. It takes about a decade for half of any single registration cohort to complete. After that, almost nobody completes. They either drop out or they continue with careers as apprentices without ever having any plans to complete. According to the national apprenticeship survey, lack of work is the main reason given by apprentices for not completing.
A more obscure aspect of apprenticeship and trades is that historically about 40% of those certified in the trades have become certified without ever taking an apprenticeship. These people are known as “trade qualifiers”. They simply document their work experience and challenge the final exam. Trade qualification is in fact the only route, other than apprenticeship, to certification in the trades in Canada. There are other routes available in other countries.
On the question of appeal of apprenticeship to Canadian youth—one of your important topics, I think—only about 4% of high school students aspire to the trades as a career. However, 10 years later, about 10% of these people actually find themselves working in the trades. That's consistent with the idea of late entry, and it's also consistent with the notion that perhaps it's second or third choice as a career.
In contrast with the case in some other countries, high school education in Canada is deliberately intended to be generic, keeping students' post-secondary and career options open as long as possible. In countries where specific vocational tracks exist, these effectively lock students into a path that precludes entry to post-secondary education and careers requiring higher education. I'll say a word more about that in a minute. I would argue, therefore, that it's inappropriate to focus on creating a specific route to apprenticeship for high school students.
On the question of labour market supply and demand, conventional wisdom holds that there is a labour shortage in the trades. However, most of the recent projections that I've seen with real numbers on them suggest that the supply of completing apprentices—which is increasing fairly dramatically, by the way—will be sufficient to meet the projected demand over about the next decade in a number of major trades. That seems to fly in the face of everything we hear. The unanswered question, of course, is whether there's a shortage of tradespersons in general or whether the shortage is more specifically of certified people, and particularly of people with the Red Seal endorsements.
There's some evidence that a regional imbalance is a significant issue, with shortages in some regions and surpluses in others. If you have spot shortages, that can create the illusion of general shortages, because of course it's the shortages you hear about; you don't hear about the surpluses.
On the question of improving certification completion rates, the trades are unique among skilled occupations in continuing to demand a lengthy period of on-the-job training while minimizing the role of in-school training. Most other occupations have long ago moved to more formal education and less work experience as the basis for certification.
The largest single issue in apprenticeship at the moment is not recruitment, but completion and certification of those who are already in the system. In the Red Seal trades, the Red Seal exams have been adopted as the certification exams in most jurisdictions. Any improvement in certification rates will also, apparently, yield a parallel increase in Red Seals.
Finally, let me summarize by making a few comments on possible directions the committee might consider.
First of all, as I've said, focus more on completion than on recruitment. In my view, one of the most cost-effective ways to increase the number of certified tradespersons would be to have policies designed to encourage more uncertified workers to become certified as trade qualifiers.
Consider the possibility of replacing subsidies to employers to take on apprenticeships, which has become fairly common, with incentives to make the work experience period shorter and more intensive, treating it more as training and less as low-paid work.
Consider the possibility of new programs, with increased emphasis on in-school training and less on work experience.
Finally, by all means, find ways to encourage high school students to acquire more exposure to the trades, but don't attempt to streamline high school students into specialized trade or vocational programs, because these are typically dead-end programs in high schools.
Thank you.