Human Resources Committee on Dec. 4th, 2012

[Ryan Cleary, NDP, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to the witnesses.

I have a number of questions, so I'm going to look for short answers because I only have five minutes.

Mr. Worswick, I found some of the things you had to say, some of your research, fascinating, especially in terms of your work with the census data from 2006. You talk about how there are more Canadian-born men with fathers, for example, from England, Ireland, and New Zealand in apprenticeship programs, as opposed to Canadian-born men whose fathers come from Asia, for example, who have lower apprenticeship numbers.

My question doesn't have to do with the research, which I find fascinating, and I'm sure it can help us in terms of addressing the apprenticeship shortages, but what impact are the changes to the census program, to the long-form census, going to have on your future research?

[Prof. Christopher Worswick]

It's going to be a challenge for future research. The main issue is in the past, when the long form was mandatory. We were fairly confident that we were getting a representative sample of the population and for these subgroups. Obviously, if individuals are refusing to complete the long form, and if that's not random, then we're going to have to try to account for that statistical bias, or any statistical biases that could come into it.

To be fair, that doesn't affect our results, and you certainly haven't implied that, but it will be a challenge going forward, yes.

[Ryan Cleary, NDP, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

I'm looking for a quick answer here, I'm sorry—if it's even possible to give me one. What does it tell you, the fact that where a Canadian comes from, where their parent comes from, and the likelihood of their going into an apprenticeship program...? How will that help us, moving forward, in terms of addressing apprenticeship shortages?

[Prof. Christopher Worswick]

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.

[Ryan Cleary, NDP, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Thank you.

Mr. Coe, I have a question for you. You talked about how we don't have one apprenticeship system in Canada; we have 13. You talked about how, for example, in terms of qualifying for a bricklaying program you need grade 9, and in B.C. you need grade 12. My question is short and simple. Instead of 13 apprenticeship programs in Canada, should there only be one?

[Dr. Patrick Coe]

To be fair, I was focusing on completion rates. The different structure didn't seem to matter as much as I thought it would have a priori, so if there are good reasons for that regional variation, it doesn't seem there's too much cost in terms of completions. Certainly, my results don't speak to saying we should move to a single system.

Red Seal is in place, as Andrew said, so that does allow somebody who qualifies, say, in Nova Scotia, to then go further and get the qualification that allows them to move throughout Canada. Presumably, a single program would do that in one step, in some sense, but I don't think the Red Seal is a particularly large cost on individuals. Again, if there are differences in regional economies that would suggest differences in programs, then moving to a single program could be costly.

[Ryan Cleary, NDP, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Mr. Sharpe, I have a question for you. Right off the bat in your presentation, the first presentation this morning, you talked about the ratio of completion rates to total registration. I believe the number you used was 8.4%.

[Dr. Andrew Sharpe]

Right.

[Ryan Cleary, NDP, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

In other testimony we've had before this committee, we were told that the average age of an apprentice across Canada—correct me if I'm wrong—is 25, to start.

[Dr. Andrew Sharpe]

Right.

[Ryan Cleary, NDP, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

I was shocked when you said the ratio of completion rates to total registration was 8.4%, given the mature starting age of apprentices. Why is it so low?

[Dr. Andrew Sharpe]

Again, remember it's not the completion rate; it's the ratio of completions to total registration. That's not the same thing. The completion rates may be up to 50%. It's taking the total stock, as was said, taking the number of 430,000 people and comparing it with the number of completions every year, 36,000 in 2010. I don't know if there's a link there with the age. Many apprentices are in their late 20s and 30s because they often don't know if they want to go into that; they don't know where they want to go. They try a few jobs, then they find a trade they want to do and they go into it.

I don't think there's any necessary link between the average age of the apprentice and this overall ratio. I don't know if there's necessarily any relationship there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you for that exchange.

We'll move to Mr. Daniel. Go ahead.

[Joe Daniel, Conservative, Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, witnesses, for being here.

I'm very interested in all the statistics, and the way you've sliced it up and diced it up, and so on, but really, has anybody actually talked to the apprentices who didn't complete to find out why they really didn't complete them, so we actually have some idea as to what are the hard points? You mentioned availability of credit and a couple of other things, but has anybody actually done any surveys with the dropouts from the apprenticeship programs?

[Dr. Patrick Coe]

I think there is a survey among apprentices that does exactly that. I think Rick Mueller did a study that looked at completions using that survey, which I think also gives apprentices the option to say why they dropped out.

Survey evidence can be informative, but of course the reasons someone gives you may not be the reason they do drop out. People often talk about how periods of employment instability are important. Employers talk quite a bit about math and literacy skills of the apprentices, that they're not up to what's needed in order to get through the program. Yes, there are studies that do exist.

[Dr. Andrew Sharpe]

This was a very important issue for the government about eight years ago. They actually allocated a lot of money, around $15 million, to a national apprenticeship survey that was run in 2007-08. There had been past apprenticeship surveys, but they took this very seriously.

After that they commissioned a number of studies exactly on this issue. I was involved in that as a member of a technical committee. All sorts of possible reasons were asked about, in terms of whether there's an incentive to complete and so on. Often the wages of people who complete are not massively different from those who don't complete. Remember, you have a job if you're an apprentice and you can simply stay there.

There's quite a bit of literature on that issue. I don't think there's any one silver bullet that says this is the reason people are quitting. There's a wide variety of reasons why people are not finishing.

[Joe Daniel, Conservative, Don Valley East, ON]

We talked a little bit about the other question about the statistics in the long form. Can you be a little bit more specific about what would be in the long form that would actually give you any information on this? From what I've seen, almost everything you would actually need is already in the short form.

[Prof. Christopher Worswick]

It's a good question.

Off the top of my head, I don't believe the father's place of birth is in the short form; I believe it's in the long form. Earnings are in the long form. Occupation, we control for; it's in the long form.

I'd have to check on the other variables, but I'm quite sure that we could not do our analysis with the short form.

[Joe Daniel, Conservative, Don Valley East, ON]

One of the things that has come up many times is that there aren't enough positions for apprenticeships. My question is, what can the federal government do to actually help in terms of encouraging employers and small to medium companies to actually open up more positions and be able to go through the whole process so that the apprentices can complete their programs?

[Dr. Patrick Coe]

I think it's difficult, in the sense that if there aren't positions for apprentices, maybe that says something about whether the demand is really there for the occupation. If this is an important occupation, then you would expect the positions to be there. There's a bit of a challenge in terms of subsidizing people to work in the tasks they're then doing, because if there's no real work for them to do that's related to their trade, they're not getting the training they need.

[Joe Daniel, Conservative, Don Valley East, ON]

Typically, if an employer has a program for an apprenticeship, it's usually for some work that they actually have.

[Dr. Patrick Coe]

Exactly.

[Joe Daniel, Conservative, Don Valley East, ON]

How do we encourage employers to actually open up these situations to allow this to happen? There is a cost associated with an apprenticeship program.

[Dr. Patrick Coe]

There are ways. You can subsidize the wage, but again, whether or not that's something you want to do is I think a question. People will always hire more workers if they're cheaper.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you, Mr. Daniel.

Did somebody else have a quick, short comment?

Go ahead, Mr. Sharpe, and then we'll move to Ms. Murray.