Why are so many trades apprentices struggling to complete their programs?

Justin Santos, a traffic signal electrician who lives in Kelowna, B.C., got his Red Seal electrician designation this spring. But completing the four-year program stretched him financially.

Apprentices alternate between on-the-job training with an employer, during which they have to complete a certain amount of work hours, and short stints in the classroom to prepare for the next level.

Although Mr. Santos earned money working for stretches of time with an employer, the challenge was going back to school: Once in the classroom, apprentices receive employment insurance, which is about half of their salary up to a maximum of just more than $600 a week. Mr. Santos’s first job paid him $16.50 an hour. (Typically, apprenticeships take two to five years to complete, with apprentices alternating between about a year of paid work and eight to 12 weeks of classroom training.)

“I was taking care of my grandmother and myself, I didn’t have a lot to fall back on,” he said. “A lot of apprentices that I’ve met are 30 and above and are wanting to get into the trades but they’re struggling with it. They can’t afford to go into school for a two-month period.”

Canada has big ambitions to build major infrastructure projects – and those projects require skilled tradespeople. But despite substantial demand for these workers, the country remains in a significant skilled-trades deficit: The federal government estimates Canada will need 1.4 million new trades workers by 2033 to replace retiring workers and meet project demand.

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The government is trying to close that gap with a handful of measures to make it more financially feasible for Canadians to finish their apprenticeship programs.

Starting in the spring of 2027, apprentices will receive a top-up of $400 a week for in-class learning. The government is bringing back a $5,000 apprenticeship completion bonus for Red Seal trades that was scrapped at the beginning of 2025. It will also give small and medium employers up to $10,000 for every first-year apprentice in a Red Seal trade they hire.

The Red Seal designation allows a tradesperson to practise across the country and covers 54 professions, including agricultural equipment technicians, aircraft maintenance engineers, carpenters, industrial electricians, millwrights and ironworkers.

Statistics suggest a growing number of Canadians are choosing trades. Apprenticeship enrolments hit a record high of more than 101,500 in 2024, according to Statistics Canada, but completions of these programs have remained below prepandemic levels. Almost 47,000 apprentices received certification that year, or a rate of 19.9 per cent. In comparison, a decade prior, 93,500 Canadians enrolled in a skilled trade and 59,400 received their certifications.

Professions that require certification to be able to legally work in the trade, such as electricians and automotive service technicians, generally have higher completions than voluntary-completion trades such as cooks, hairstylists and construction workers.

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The percentage of apprentices who had not yet become certified at the expected completion of their program in 2024 remained elevated at 49.2 per cent. Statistics Canada noted the pandemic could be partly to blame.

Experts say financial challenges can be a barrier for apprentices trying to complete their programs.

Anna Lary, master electrician and the project lead of British Columbia Institute of Technology’s ConnectHer Hub, pointed out that many apprentices are facing a combination of lower entry-level wages and a high cost of living.

First-year apprentices start at roughly 50 per cent of a certified journeyperson’s rate, and the wages progressively increase.

In 2022, newly certified journeypersons made a median income of just more than $56,500 one year after the completion of their apprenticeship, according to Statistics Canada. Emily Arrowsmith, director of research and programs at the Canadian Apprenticeship Forum, noted this varies significantly by trade, with apprentices in professions such as heavy-duty equipment operators or carpenters making higher first-year wages.

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The average age of apprentices registering for a Red Seal trade was 25 in 2023, according to Statistics Canada. In Ontario, the average age of a level-one apprentice is 29, said Richard Lyall, president of the Residential Construction Council of Ontario.

That means new apprentices often have financial obligations such as mortgage payments or are coming to the trades after years in low-wage occupations. It can make in-class learning on EI difficult to afford, said Sean Strickland, executive director of Canada’s Building Trades Unions, an alliance of 14 unions in construction, maintenance and fabrication.

“A lot of apprentices will stretch that out, they’ll defer, they won’t go until they’re financially stable,” he said.

He said the federal EI top-up is a “significant lift to help apprentices complete the in-school portion of their training.”

Mr. Santos said the apprenticeship completion bonus, which will be available retroactively to newly certified journeypersons who completed their apprenticeship as of April, 2025, is also a meaningful financial incentive. He said it will cover the roughly $4,000 he spent to purchase the tools he’ll need.

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New apprentices can also struggle to find their first employer. Employers that teach tradespeople have to follow a curriculum established by their province, which sets certain skills an apprentice must learn at each level, and report their apprentice’s hours.

That can be a significant expense for employers, particularly smaller ones, said Mr. Strickland.

“It’s hard to get a first-year and sometimes a second-year onto a job site, because the contractor really has to take a lot of time, effort and care to make sure that they’re producing in a way that helps the contractor meet the deliverables for the project,” he said. The $10,000 incentive should help to address some of those hurdles, he added.

Ms. Arrowsmith said the Canadian Apprenticeship Forum surveys apprentices regularly about barriers to completion. Respondents often say their employer won’t release them to attend school because they’re too busy, or the employer is providing insufficient training and they’re unable to advance.

“If you take on an apprentice you’re obligated to do certain things, but some employers are like, ‘I don’t like the curriculum, I just want to teach them how to frame.’”

Financial constraints are far from the only roadblock to higher completion rates. RESCON’s Mr. Lyall said young people don’t get much exposure to the trades in school and the pathways for people to begin an apprenticeship are often hard to navigate, which contributes to the higher average age of new apprentices. Apprentices in voluntary-completion trades may opt to discontinue if they’re earning a good enough wage, he said.

Ms. Lary noted that women and gender-diverse people face additional challenges, including alienation and harassment on job sites, that can discourage them from certifying.

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