‘The trades are having a real moment’: As perceptions change, more young workers are choosing this path

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When Jamie Shaw finished high school in her hometown of Windsor, Ont., she did what many young Canadians are expected to do next: she went to university.

Four years later, she graduated from Brock University in St. Catharines, Ont. with a degree in kinesiology. But she didn’t picture herself becoming a kinesiologist. What Ms. Shaw loved was being outdoors. So, after earning a college diploma in outdoor adventure, she moved to Salt Spring Island. B.C. and found work as a sea kayak guide and on a local goat farm.

She spent part of her days repairing fences and fixing barn doors around the property and discovered she was drawn to the hands-on work.

“I didn’t really know what I was doing,” she says. “But I realized I wanted to learn.”

Before long, she was helping a local carpenter and, the more she learned, the more she liked the work and discovered a new career path.

Today, at 29, Ms. Shaw is a carpentry apprentice in Vancouver, working for a custom homebuilder. Next year, she expects to earn her journeyperson certification and become a fully qualified carpenter.

“The trades were never presented to me as an option when I was in school,” she says. “But once I started building things, it just clicked.”

For decades, young Canadians were told that a university degree and a white-collar job offered the best route to a stable, middle-class life. Trades were for those who didn’t have the grades for higher education.

That perception is starting to change. Double-digit youth unemployment and concerns that artificial intelligence will cull many office jobs are pushing more to take a fresh look at carpentry, electrical work, plumbing and other trades.

The shift is showing up in the numbers. In 2024, 101,584 Canadians started a trade apprenticeship, according to Statistics Canada. That was the highest since the agency began tracking apprenticeships in 2008 and 31 per cent more than five years earlier.

Attitudes are changing, too. Fifty-four per cent of Canadians under 30 say are interested in pursuing a skilled trades career in the energy and natural resources sectors, according to a 2025 Canadian Apprenticeship Forum survey. A recent Future Skills Centre survey found 59 per cent of adults would recommend skilled trades training as a good career move for a young person. Just 26 per cent said the same about a general university degree.

“The trades are having a real moment right now,” says Shelley Gray, chief executive officer of SkilledTradesBC.

Part of the appeal is practical. Apprentices earn a paycheque while they learn and certified journeypersons can earn upwards of $40 and $50 an hour. Unionized jobs often come with health and pension benefits.

“The value is starting to make sense,” Ms. Gray says.

If you build it, the trades will come

The Carney government’s push to build more infrastructure is also spurring interest. In its spring economic update, Ottawa announced $6-billion to help recruit, train and hire up to 100,000 skilled trades workers over the next five years.

“When you have the Prime Minister talking about building Canada, people start paying attention,” says Sean Strickland, executive director of Canada’s Building Trades Unions, which represents 14 unions across 60 different trades. “Union halls are stacked full of apprenticeship applicants.”

Mr. Strickland has watched interest in trades rise and fall over his four decades in the industry. He started as a bricklayer’s helper at 15, following his father and grandfather, both of whom worked in the trade. But today’s newcomers often arrive after trying another career first. The average age of a new apprentice in Canada is 27.

That was the case for Bave Kugan in Toronto. After high school, he enrolled in a business program at Seneca College but dropped out after a year. He spent the next decade working in sales and software support, eventually working his way into a six-figure job.

Then, in 2022, he was laid off.

As he searched for work, he found lower salaries and less job security. He also worried that some of the work he had done could be taken over by AI.

“I realized I had to figure something else out,” he says.

A conversation with his sister and brother-in-law, a carpenter, pointed him toward the trades. In 2023, he enrolled in a government-funded electrical pre-apprenticeship program at Centennial College in Toronto. Today, he’s an electrical apprentice with Hydro One.

Mr. Kugan, 34, accepted a steep initial pay cut in exchange for the prospect of a more stable future. Apprentices tend to earn about 40 to 50 per cent of what a journeyperson earns and receive raises each year as they work toward certification.

“A skilled trade is something nobody can take away,” he says. “Once you learn it, it’s with you forever, and that makes it invaluable.”

Ms. Shaw made a similar calculation. She started her apprenticeship earning $25 an hour. Today, she makes $33. Once she becomes a journeyperson next year, she can expect another raise. Carpenters in B.C. can earn more than $43 an hour, according to WorkBC.

In recent years, Ms. Shaw has watched friends in office jobs get laid off. Construction has its ups and downs, too, but she believes having a trade skill will give her more job opportunities in the years ahead.

But money and job security are only part of the attraction. She enjoys building something tangible. As an example, Ms. Shaw recalls the satisfaction of crafting a custom hot-tub deck from Brazilian hardwood for a client.

“We live in a very tech-oriented world,” she says, “but what I’m doing is something you can touch with your hands.”

The trades have their career hurdles, too

Yet the path to a trade career can be long, with no guarantee of a good-paying job at the end. Even after completing a pre-apprenticeship or college trades program, people must secure their own apprenticeship position with a company or union, and available positions can be hard to come by.

Once hired, the average apprenticeship takes two to four years to complete, says Emily Arrowsmith, director of research and programs at the Canadian Apprenticeship Forum in Ottawa. But they’re also vulnerable to layoffs if their employer or the economy falters.

Only about 45 per cent of people who start an apprenticeship in Canada finish, Ms. Arrowsmith says, although the numbers vary by province and occupation. In Ontario, more than 80 per cent of electrical apprentices complete their training.

Anna Lary, a master electrician who teaches at the British Columbia Institute of Technology in Burnaby, B.C., says she’s seeing more interest among younger Canadians, including university graduates, in a trade career. But few understand what’s involved.

“Entry-level wages can be low, and it can be tough to get started,” she says, though wages can rise quickly.

Hours can also be long and conditions harsh.

“You can be working outdoors in the winter while in summer you might be indoors without any air conditioning,” Ms. Lary says.

Apprentices often do most of the manual labour on jobsites.

“It’s not for the faint of heart,” she says.

Mr. Kugan says the early morning work hours and physical demands of the job took some getting used to. Still, he’s happy he made the switch.

When he spent his days in an office, he often came home mentally drained. Now, he says, “I’m physically tired but I feel good because I feel like I’ve accomplished something.”

He points to his first summer working for Hydro One. In July 2024, a flash storm flooded Toronto’s Don Valley Parkway and put out power for more than 100,000 customers in the city. Mr. Kugan spent long hours helping restore service. It was a great learning experience, he says, but mostly he remembers going home afterward with a joy he never felt in earlier jobs.

“The lights were back on,” he says. “It showed that the work I do has meaning.”