Ontario Construction News staff writer
The latest labour market report from the Canadian Apprenticeship Forum (CAF-FCA) reveals that demand for apprentices will remain high in coming years, driven by journeypersons leaving the market.
The report, Apprentice Demand in Red Seal Trades, looks at apprenticeship trends and projections to assess future demand and supply for trade certification. It predicts that from 2021 to 2025 Canada will require “an estimated 163,785 new journeypersons to sustain workforce certification levels across 56 Red Seal trades,” and “375,026 apprentices to meet the anticipated demand.”
The trades with the highest demand nationally are boilermaker, bricklayer, industrial mechanic (millwright) and welder.
The report also notes that supply may be limited in the short term due to fewer new registrations during the pandemic. An online survey of about 700 people found that 32 percent of respondents did not expect to work with their most recent employers again, 34 percent said their technical training was cancelled as a result of the pandemic and 33 percent said they were considering leaving the trades because of the impact of the pandemic.
“Offering meaningful training opportunities to apprentices and helping them complete is vital to meeting the anticipated demand,” says France Daviault, executive director of CAF-FCA. “By encouraging employers to hire apprentices and apply training best practices, we can ensure the skilled trades workforce is ready to fill the gaps created by retiring journeypersons.”
The following registration targets are estimates in the report providing insight into demand for apprentices across provinces and regions:
- Alberta: 75,467
- Atlantic Canada: 23,966
- BC: 83,277
- Manitoba: 13,914
- Ontario: 148,988
- Quebec: 21,254
- Saskatchewan: 8,160
The 2021 report examines the demand for specific occupations and is concentrated in fifteen Red Seal trades. Nationally, Boilermaker, Bricklayer, Industrial Mechanic (Millwright), and Welder are the trades with the highest demand.
Ontario will likely need about 89,000 new certified journeypersons over the next decade to keep pace with economic growth and rising retirements, two-thirds of which will be concentrated in the top 15 Red Seal trades.
According to Statistics Canada, there were 84,700 apprentices registered in a Red Seal trades in Ontario in 2019. This equates to 27 per cent of Canada’s total apprentice population and accounts for the largest number of Red Seal apprentices registered in any province.
Over the next decade, an estimated 187,420 apprentices are expected to register in a Red Seal trade in Ontario, and 137,990 of them will be concentrated in the 15 largest Red Seal trades.
Despite the current slowing of Canada’s resource sector, demand for apprentices in the labour market remains, driven by journeypersons who are retiring and leaving the workforce. Supply risk may increase over the near term depending on the severity of the decline in new registrations caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
CAF-FCA will analyze in further detail the impact of COVID-19 on the skilled trades as Statistics Canada 2020 and 2021 data sets become available.
The full report, as well as regional reports, is available at CAF-FCA.