For job seekers, lacking skills required to obtain work in their chosen field despite having accumulated student debt is both heartbreaking and demoralizing.

In Canada at the end of September 2024, there were 1.33 million people looking for jobs and almost 600,000 jobs available. Unemployment varied by level of educational attainment. There were almost four unemployed people with university degrees for every available job that required a degree, up from almost three people per job only a year before. At the other end of the scale, the number of available jobs that required a high school diploma or less had fallen by 140,000 (in just one year) and there were almost two unemployed people with only high school or less for every available job.

For job seekers, lacking skills required to obtain work in their chosen field despite having accumulated student debt to acquire higher education credentials is both heartbreaking and demoralizing. While post-secondary institutions have sought to incorporate more work-integrated learning into their programs to enhance student skills through on-the-job experience, employers still face difficulties finding qualified candidates and the resulting skills gaps and mismatches contribute to higher turnover (which is disruptive and disappointing for both employer and employee), lower productivity, reduced profitability and poor business outcomes. Employers have felt the pain of these mismatches for years and are looking for ways to address it.

Solution

Expanded apprenticeship pathways (beyond the current exclusive focus on skilled trades) could be the solution employers are looking for. While this approach demands a commitment from employers to hire and train apprentices, it develops workers with the specific skills required for the job. Apprenticeship combines structured and unstructured “learn-by-doing” approaches and mentoring in the workplace with more formalized learning offered through the post-secondary sector, or another learning provider, including industry or union training centres. And, because apprentices are paid for the work they do while they are learning, and time spent in a formal learning environment is minimized, apprentices acquire necessary skills without large student loans to pay for tuition.

Currently in Canada, the people most likely to find employment within their chosen field work in the skilled trades. This is at least partly attributable to the focused, industry-specific training for these occupations that is the result of quality apprenticeships. Workers learn exactly what their job requires because the majority of their time (about 80 per cent) is spent learning by doing on the job. Many of these workers are in high-demand occupations and there aren’t enough slots available in formal learning programs to accommodate demand -Statistics Canada reports that skilled trades occupations have some of the largest shortages of workers.

While the skilled trades and their employers have utilized the Canadian apprenticeship system to their advantage throughout our history, the approach has been and continues to be
used globally to generate skills in many other occupations and professions. Internationally, apprenticeship approaches are being successfully applied to train people in hundreds more
occupations than in Canada. And, while the regulation of skilled trades apprenticeship currently falls within the purview of provincial governments, there is nothing that prevents an industry or even an individual employer from developing and running apprenticeship-style employee training for any occupation critical to their sectors. In many places around the world, industry or professional associations regulate their own apprenticeship-style schemes.

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