Apprenticeships in need of a boost
Apprenticeships play an essential role in the development of a highly trained workforce.
And yet apprenticeship programs face a number of challenges, particularly when it comes to recruitment and retention, according to a report by the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans (IFEBP).
The top challenge for the programs (cited by 84 per cent of respondents) is replacing the number of tradespeople retiring.
Generally, in the skilled trades, the population skews older, according to Julie Stich, associate vice-president of content at IFEBP in Milwaukee.
“There’s been, over the last several years, more and more challenges getting younger people to work in the industry,” she said.
“A lot of these jobs are heavy, physical labour, so you can’t probably be 75 years old and be a bricklayer, that would be a challenge. So as the older workers — ones with the long history, the skills, the experience — are retiring out, it’s getting more and more critical for the skilled industries to find and train and get new people on the job.”
Part of the challenge is that high school students are encouraged to move towards university to start their career, rather than the trades, said Sarah Watts-Rynard, executive director of the Canadian Apprenticeship Forum in Ottawa.
“We started to see many more computer labs being built, a number of high schools no longer had shop classes or auto shop and wood shop, so with that kind of pullback, there was less young people going into the trades.”
Communicating value
On that note, the second and third top challenges for apprenticeship programs are communicating the value of a trade to prospective apprentices (74 per cent) and external stakeholders (72 per cent), found the survey of 284 respondents in the United States and Canada.
“There’s still that challenge to make people understand this is a viable career, it’s well-paying… you don’t need to go to a four-year college to become an accountant, you can have a great life, a great career (in trades),” said Stich.
Every generation wants the next generation to do better, and often it’s believed higher education is key, said Watts-Rynard.
“There’s been, in society, this move to be thinking blue-collar work is somehow less valuable than white-collar work, and pushing people to university as a reflection of that,” she said.
“That becomes ingrained in our education systems, in family conversations about what a good career looks like… and, as a result, there is a stigma.”
Thirty-one per cent of respondents anticipate it will be more difficult to recruit apprentices in the future, while 26 per cent said it will become more difficult to retain them, found the survey.
Often, apprentices choose offers of more steady work in other industry sectors, or are poached by the competition. Other challenges include low wages, safety concerns and the physical nature of the work.
Retention is one of the biggest challenges in any male-dominated profession, said Watts-Rynard.
“It’s not that women aren’t interested or that other under-represented groups, Indigenous people or visible minorities, aren’t interested. It’s just that when they get in, because they don’t have a support structure, they’d be more inclined to leave.”
It’s also easy for people to jump ship for another employer that is offering more money, according to Stich.
“What these apprenticeship programs are finding is they’ll do the work, the training, having apprentices go through a four- or five-year program to train, and then when they finish, (people) jump and go somewhere else.”
Potential solutions
Apprenticeship programs are making a concerted effort to recruit a diverse workforce, including females (81 per cent), minorities (75 per cent), military members (73 per cent), aboriginal populations (42 per cent) and immigrants (30 per cent), found IFEBP.
At present, apprenticeships are largely made up of white males, said Watts-Rynard.
“When it comes to trying to promote the trades as being a career option, you recognize that if (people) can’t see it, it’s hard sometimes to see (themselves) there as being welcome, so it sometimes shuts doors to people who might be interested. They look at the workforce and just say, ‘Oh, no, that’s not for me, that’s a guy’s job.’”
And when it comes to the Indigenous population, “there’s a lot of opportunity when you start considering that a lot of the skilled trades work happens in rural and remote areas, particularly… resource, mining, forestry, oil and gas,” she said.
Educational institutions can also help by familiarizing more young people with these opportunities earlier in their lives, said Stich, in addition to greater involvement from potential partners such as community organizations, labour organizations, construction contractors, vocational schools, the military, veterans or faith-based organizations.
“There’s definitely a push to bring more diverse populations into the trades. It makes sense, it’s fair, it’s right, but it also will help alleviate some of the crunch of trying to find someone to work,” she said.
