As I already mentioned with regard to the questions on deep structural training change, over-qualification in Canada and our high enrolment rates in university and education point to the fact that access to education is certainly not the sole recipe for success. It's also not simply a problem of skills mismatch. What we really need to be doing is thinking about the sorts of jobs we're fostering for young people and the way in which employers and workplaces are using these skills and these graduates' capacities.
Mr. Warawa's question pointed to connecting this to the growing population or the aging population in Canada. He pointed to jobs in home care. We're looking at a shortage of hospital beds ahead. That's simply not the right avenue for a lot of our older population.
Part of the problem, as you mentioned, is that those jobs tend to be low-wage jobs. They have unpredictable hours, and they have a lot of health and safety risks. Part of this is that workplaces are changing. They're much smaller workplaces, or people are working individually. We have to make sure that labour laws and employment standards are changing along with this. By doing so, we can make sure that these types of need-connected jobs are good and decent jobs.
Canadian labour relations are based on the Wagner model, which was based on large workplaces. How can we explore broader-based bargaining to give these workers the tools they need to advocate for good, decent work? We also need to think about the question I posed earlier about self-employment. Are employers misclassifying workers as self-employed? If so, workers in these desperately needed fields don't have access to basic standards and minimums.
The other piece, again, is apprenticeships and making sure that these apprenticeships are connected to the jobs that are needed. I did mention that we have very low completion rates, and part of this is that employers just aren't doing their part in hiring, training, and taking on these apprentices. In order to complete an apprenticeship, you need a certain number of hours to actually achieve certification. However, only one in five employers who need these skilled workers—so about 19%—actually hire and train apprentices. This is very low.
Since 1993, employer investment in training has decreased by 40%, so employers just aren't doing their part in training the workers for these jobs that they need. Government investment in training has also decreased, which actually ranks Canada near the bottom of the list of OECD countries.
I think you make a really good point—and it's come up again—when you say that we should really foster the jobs that we need and make sure that those jobs are good, decent jobs.