A new labour-market information (LMI) report published by the Canadian Apprenticeship Forum (CAF-FCA) shows a need for tens of thousands of new journeypersons in Canada’s Re Seal trades in the next five years, and many of those in construction trades.

CAF-FCA’s Apprentice Demand in Red Seal Trades report brings together apprenticeship trends data and projections to provide a forward-looking assessment of the country’s demand and supply for trade certifications. In particular, it considers key apprenticeship system characteristics including sensitivity to economic cycles and completion rates.

The latest instalment of the report draws on 2019 data from Statistics Canada’s Registered Apprenticeship Information System, and therefore does not take into account the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on registration and completion rates. It does, however, conclude that between 2021 and 2025, Canada’s 56 Red Seal trades will need an estimated 163,785 new journeypersons to sustain workforce certification levels, and 375,000 apprentices to meet the anticipated demand.

More than this, demand for apprentices will be greatest in the country’s top 15 Red Seal trades. More than 115,000 new journeypersons will be needed in the automotive service technician, boilermaker, bricklayer, carpenter, construction electrician, cook, hairstylist, heavy duty equipment technician, industrial mechanic (millwright), mobile crane operator, plumber, refrigeration and air conditioning mechanic, sheet metal worker, steamfitter/pipefitter and welder trades.

“Offering meaningful training opportunities to apprentices and helping them complete is vital to meeting the anticipated demand. 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,” says CAF-FCA executive director France Daviault.

Apprentice demand varies by region, and CAF-FCA has published dedicated reports for Alberta, Atlantic Canada, British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, Québec and Saskatchewan.

Ontario, says CAF-FCA, will likely require approximately 88,960 new certified journeypersons over the next decade to keep pace with economic growth and rising retirements. Two-thirds of those journeypersons will be concentrated in the top 15 Red Seal trades. Those construction trades judged to be most at risk of undersupply in Ontario between now and the end of the decade include welders, bricklayers and boilermakers.

The COVID-19 pandemic has complicated labour-market projects significantly, CAF-FCA also reports.

Although final data for 2020 has not yet been complied, early indications show that new apprenticeship registration dropped by more than 30 percent in 2020, and the barriers to completion caused by public-health guidelines dropped certifications by 40 percent—to their lowest levels since 2005. Both are expected to rebound in 2021, but the impacts of those troughs will carry through the apprenticeship system for years.

CAF-FCA has also found that the pandemic has affected some apprentices’ desire or ability to pursue careers in the trades. Through an online survey of nearly 700 people, the group found that 32 percent of respondents said they 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.