We have a problem with skilled trades and apprenticeships in Canada.  At the root of it are three things: short-term thinking, bad forecasting, and a training schedule driven by money over pedagogy.

Short-termism is embedded in Canadian apprenticeships.  When the economy is booming, we take on more apprentices; when it’s in the tank, we cut back.  This is because “enrolment” is based entirely on decentralized private sector demand for young, cheap labour.   Given that finishing an apprenticeship takes four or five years (roughly the length of an economic cycle), this more or less guarantees that the supply of apprentices is always going to be out of whack; not enough when the economy is at full tilt, and too many when the economy is slowing down.  Yet, for some reason, this simple fact is never acknowledged in policy circles, let alone the subject of any serious reform measures.

Aggravating this situation is the fact that industry is pounding on government’s doors, asking for financial help to expand apprenticeships (read: supply of inexpensive labour).  Usually, these are couched in terms about looming “shortages” of people in the skilled trades, but some of these predictions depend on overly optimistic views about future demand.  As a recent – and quite brilliant – paper from the Certified General Accountants of Canada noted, we really only have a skills shortage if you assume future demand will increase at the pace it did between 2003 and 2007.  If you assume a more moderate pace – say, the 2001-2011 average – the only shortages one sees are in carpentry, which has plenty of new apprentices, but the highest discontinuation rate of any trade in the country.  Heal thyself, guys.

And then, of course, there’s the problem that Canada’s apprenticeship system is among the world’s least coherent, pedagogically speaking.   Other countries send apprentices on day release for in-class training instruction, because theory and practice are best integrated that way.  On the other hand, we use the pedagogically dubious block-release system for in-class training – which is basically a ruse to suck money out of the EI system (apprentices are technically unemployed while studying, and hence are EI-eligibile).  Might that be one reason our apprentices take longer than any in the world to reach journeyman status?  Maybe.  I don’t see anyone rushing to find out, though.

Sadly our federal and provincial governments these days seem to reach instinctively towards skilled trades and apprenticeships as the answer to most issues of youth employment and human resource development.  What we actually need is a better and more efficient apprenticeship system, one that smooths out the swings in supply and demand.  But all the clamour right now is in favour of more of the same.  Expect our skilled trades problem to fester.