Apprenticeship in Canada: where’s the crisis?

Abstract

Unique features of the 2006 census, as well as 33 employer interviews, provide an opportunity to test key assumptions in Canadian apprenticeship policy. Apprenticeship is widely understood to be a crucial contributor to the national skills supply, but also an institution critically vulnerable to market failures, mainly due to the insecurity of private contracts for training. The census data reveal a low overall incidence of apprenticeship certification among trades workers, revealing a trades labour market substantially dependent on uncertified labour. Strong inter-occupational differences in the certification rate make it unlikely that participation is impeded by a uniform set of contracting problems. At the firm level, the interviews reveal substantial diversity in employers’ training practices, levels of investment, and modes of engagement with the apprenticeship system. Consistent with recent literature in the political economy of skills, the present findings support a view of apprenticeship as an institution centred on collective action rather than private contract. They suggest that current Canadian apprenticeship policies offer indiscriminate subsidies with negligible and potentially negative effects on private skill formation.

Keywords:

• apprenticeship
• Canada
• skill supply
• labour market theory
• political economy

Notes

1. British Columbia, where the interviews for this project were conducted, has gone furthest among Canadian provinces in adapting apprenticeship to the flexible labour market. Under BC’s ‘new model’ of apprenticeship, introduced in 2003, the role of the provincial apprenticeship authority includes no enforcement mandate. As it rolled out the new model, the province also rescinded any legislation that had made trades certification compulsory. At present, formal trade certification is not a legal requirement for workers in any apprenticeable trade in the province, although it is indirectly mandated in several cases through safety regulations.

2. Craft unions organise workers within discrete occupations (e.g., plumbers, carpenters), while industrial unions represent workers by industrial sector (e.g., forestry, manufacturing) regardless of occupational title.