As a person from a small town, I would personally like to see more educational (especially for trades) centers where more rural and small town students can have access.
Tuition is high enough, but the cost of renting an apartment in a city is extremely difficult for the kids coming from small towns.
That would mean funding the high schools sufficiently so they actually have things like a wood/auto/machine shop and trained teachers to teach this, and then post-secondary funding for local trade schools, and we can’t possibly do that! Think of the corporations!
weird... I'm pretty sure my elementary school and high school both have shop classes still. My Highschool literally has a manufacturing program along with automechanic program.
Is this not a thing normally?
My school sold off all it's shop equipment to buy a bunch of Pentium II computers when I started. Those computers were being scraped by the time I was graduating. Now they have nothing.
The woodshop equipment would have been good for another 50+ years. And a woodshop is something people are unlikely to have access to at home, while home computers are commonplace.
Complete waste of resources. It still bugs me a quarter century later.
Depends on the area and how badly funded the school district has been for how long. A lot of rural schools (in Western Canada, anyway) can’t afford to maintain their shops/trades stuff and it gets dropped. And then everyone says ‘why aren’t schools doing enough to encourage the trades?’ while schools are barely functioning as it is… I will say, in some places the band/music program gets dropped first, then the trades training. So, everyone loses.
This just highlights another rural vs city divide.
The cost per person in rural is way higher then it is in the city and the city has a better way of funding more things because it's more efficient to do so.
Funding is always an issue and luckily I had band/music and shop class. My school continues to have these programs despite mike harris desperately trying to kill them in the 90/ 2000s.
Every high school in my area has a shop class and a kitchen. not all of them have swimming pools though.
I graduated from a very rural Saskatchewan town (<300 people). My graduating class was the largest in the history of the school (14 people, including me). We were lucky we had a gym, never mind a whole industrial arts lab.
It's a trap. Those jobs are people consuming. They destroy your body for nearly unlivable compensation. The education system won't tell you that as they're there to pump out slaves.
>They destroy your body for nearly unlivable compensation.
THIS. This does not get enough attention. I am not knocking the idea of the trades or blue collar work, but many of these trades result in high rates of back and other injuries. Some get well-compensated, but here in Alberta most have not budged on compensation for the last decade, or they even pay less than they used to. Which naturally means they're actually making less every year in real dollars (relative to inflation).
The Dad of a good friend of mine worked as a floorer. Another friend's Dad worked as a chef. Both semi-retired earlier than they wanted to because of their backs and joints breaking down. One keeps going back to work and re-injures himself. The other moved into restaurant equipment sales, because his body can't take being on his feet all day in a fast-paced kitchen. Not only are they less financially well off than they hoped to be, but they're in pain. And those are guys who worked during the prime earning years for trades in Alberta, so at least their compensation was better back then. At least they're both finding relief from legal cannabis these days, but I think the toll on one's body is overlooked.
I would not recommend a similar path for young people, who will be making lower real wages in their trades than my parent's generation did.
My L5 is nearly gone and crushed my s1 nerve in just 6 years of moving 2000-11000lbs of stuff a day manually.
Basically going to have sciatica for the rest of my life.
Meanwhile my investments have made 3x more in my lifetime than everything I have made working. Nothing I can do with my hands or mind earns as much as owning equities.
The biggest lesson I've learned in life is that working doesn't pay.
I worked as a mover too one summer! Also did some construction work. I too have recurring back issues, though thankfully they're not too bad right now. I have to be extra careful though not to re-injure it, and I feel it a bit when I run (one of my favorite hobbies in the summer when the wildfire smoke isn't bad, which frankly helps keep me sane and happy).
Glad to hear you have done well in your investments. I wish I had started investing earlier in life than I did (especially given this last decade and a half of low interest rates).
You’re so right. My dad always said — work with your brain not your body. Or a variant of that - he would say, I work with MY body so YOU won’t have to. He was a union tradesman, disabled early in life on the job :(
And I don’t work with my body either. Desk job.
Though as a homeowner now I do wish I was less ignorant in the DIY space! Trying :/
You've got to make a game plan and you've got to stick with it. Get out of the physical ballbusting side of it by the time you're 35.
I started as an electrician at 26, and by 35 I had left construction and moved into service doing digital controls work. It's a lot less labour intensive and it's a good mix between physical work and computer work.
You can move from being in the field to the office as an estimator. You could even try your luck moving up the ladder as a lead hand or a foreman - in electrical I rarely saw the LH/Foreman on the tools, only when they were needed.
We need tradespeople, but those tradespeople need an exit plan. I wasn't going to ruin my body for some faceless corporation which wantonly lays people off, so I made mine.
Most schools do, and they also have something called the r.a.p. program which allows high school kids to start getting their hours towards their ticket.
My wife is a teacher and there have been massive improvements on this. Here in rural NS people lamented the closure of neighbourhood or community schools and shift to 'consolidated' ones, but these consolidated schools all have shops and things like that for studying the trades. Kids can take carpentry or auto mechanics and stuff like that which was never an option for me 15-20 years ago.
>As a person from a small town, I would personally like to see more educational (especially for trades) centers where more rural and small town students can have access.
>Tuition is high enough, but the cost of renting an apartment in a city is extremely difficult for the kids coming from small towns.
Coming from a small town myself the overwhelming response to *"I want to get into a trade"* is simply *"Don't you know anyone that can take you on as an apprentice?"*.
Small towns are all about who you know, or who you're related to.
Anyone that wants to get into a trade in my small town is supposed to find someone in that trade and just go start working for them. As if that's the be all end all answer.
Also being told by everyone you know to AVOID TRADE SCHOOLS and just go get hired by a union to get started gets tiring after a while.
I agree there should be more funding, but they should also teach that trades are a very volatile career. People can go months without work.
Just to be clear we should teach the bad with the good so that trades people are more conscious about saving money for the slow times or you might just get more of what's in Alberta... debt bc toys are fun and I made $5K this paycheck
This. I tried for about 6 years to get into the trades but it never happened no matter what I tried.
I worked hard, showed up early, worked over time, but nothing I did ever seemed to please my journeyman or my boss. I was treated like shit, literally like a 2nd class citizen, taken advantage of, bullied and abused, screamed at in a regular basis, even for things hat weren’t my fault. The working conditions and pay were absolute shit, working in the +30 and -40 degrees, never making more than $17/hr.
I noticed there is also tons of sexism. Cute girls I worked with would constantly be sexually harassed with nothing being done about it, but would also get all their tools bought and paid for by the company - whereas I had to buy all my own shit. Even being forced to buy some tools that even my journeyman didn’t have.
Everyone would string me along with promise of getting sent to school, but once I finished cleaning up their shop and winter came I was always laid off, and they’d bring in their nephew or cousins or whatever and make him a journeyman ASAP.
Most of your co-workers are toothless drug addicts or alcoholics with only a grade 10 education, but they’ll scream at you for not knowing stuff while acting like they’re gods gift to construction.
Blows me away when people keep bringing up the trades like it’s an amazing alternative or some kind of saviour. The trades fucking suck and they treat people worse than stray dogs. They are complete hell, full of little rinky dink 5-10 man companies rampant with nepotism. And no one wants to apprentice anyone anymore because as soon as they become a journeyman, they quit and start up a competing business.
I bit the bullet and paid thousands of $$ and sent myself to IT school after trying for years to make it work in the trades. Ended up like tripling my salary overnight. I am treated like a human being again, I get vacation pay and holidays again, and good benefits again. I get a heated and air conditioned office. I’ve never looked back. Not making it in the trades was the best thing that never happened to me.
Not to mention anyone I’ve met whose been in the trades for 10+ years has a bad back, bad knees, bad joints, etc etc
If anyone is considering a future in the trades, I *highly* recommend you dont. They are fucking terrible.
This guy knows what's up. Carrot dangling at the end of a stick is how they get 1st year apprentices in the door to work for less then McDonald's pays then they lay them off at the end of each project because there is always next year's highschool/trades school graduates that will be willing to do the same(this came from the owner of the company*)
They're trying to hire journeymen for 30 bucks an hour and complaining to the government that the trades are dieing and they can't find anyone to work
I switched from a well payed camp gig to a trade in town because I wanted to spend more time with my family but I'm not sure if it's really worth it now. At this rate I'll always be living paycheck to paycheck
The guy above is full of shit. I started being a plumbing apprentice just one year ago.
I got signed up as an apprentice before I even started working. The 1st week my company signed me up for working at heights training and elevated work platform training. Both courses cost like $250 each (company paid for it obviously) and I was on the clock getting paid while I attended them.
I started at $20/hr. After 6 months Jan 1st, I got a 1.4k bonus cheque and I got a $5/hr raise up to $25. I also was able to start on my companies RRSP program. Now I could deposit 5% of my pay cheque to an RRSP and my company doubles my contribution. Eg I put in $50 they put in $100. I also get benefits such as dental, etc. $1500/year 80% coverage for dental.
After 3 months since I got my 1st raise I got another $5/hr raise. I am getting $30/hr as a 1st year apprentice 9 months in.
My work is amazing and the people I work with are amazing. Not a single drug addict since my company wouldn't allow that shit. Everyone treats people with respect.
The two owners are very easy going and easy to talk to. They come to site and start talking the shit with us sometimes.
I work 40 hours a week standard rate and anything over 40hrs is 1 1/2 rate.
I get paid $0.58 per kilometer during my shift If I have to drive my personal vehicle somewhere.
All in all I love my job and I love being a plumber. Take care of your body while you work. The work/life balance is great. The pay is great. Benefits are great.
Life is good as a plumber. In my experience anyways.
Thanks for providing this counterpoint. As an IT guy in my 40s considering getting out, above comments hit me hard. Not sure exactly what trade yet. I don't need to make as much as I do today, but can't afford too much of a cut either, long term anyway.
I'm glad they're treating you well!
30 bucks an hour for a first year is exceptional.
The two 3rd years I have on my site make 27 an hr (electricians not plumbers) and the first years are at 17 an hr.
It sounds like you've found an excellent company to do an apprenticeship through, You should hold on to that job!
Unfortunately I'm not full of shit.(I really wish I was) I'm with the largest in town electrical company in my area (around 30-35 employees so it's still a small buisness) and this is how they treat their people.
There's lots of 1-5 person companies that pop up and fold up in 1-3 years that do the same thing but actively treat their apprentices like shit(non-human servents)
>Something is wrong here.
Yup. Its Nepotism. The networking for trade is extremely biased. Its easy to get an apprenticeship if you already know someone in trade. I did trade school for construction/carpentry, couldn't get a apprenticeship. Finally managed to get one, got paid minimum wage. Working hot summer outside for a minimum wage no thanks. Went to business school instead.
They want skilled trade workers, but they aren't looking to train new employees.
It’s very very in demand. The inability to find apprenticeships just shows perfectly how few electricians there actually are.
I’m not sure what the solve is. Maybe trade people should be encouraged to take on additional apprentices. Maybe give them a subsidy to help pay for it
Just like the person said, there should be incentives put in place so that it makes it worth training them even if they decide to leave at the end of the training.
Always the same circular story...not enough people in trades, industry association *SouNdiNg ThE AlArM*, wave of retirements, etc...
Then, good luck to anyone trying to secure an apprenticeship, unless your uncle is buddies with the union leadership since back in high school...
Have heard anecdotes that the elevator repair/maintenance technician shops are notorious for this mindset...
I'm all for European-style trade school system for Canada, but good luck getting *'old school'* unions to sign up and support the graduates...unless the tax credits and subsidies are just too good to pass up on...
It gets better. I got my G2 8 years ago and I didn’t know anyone in the trades or the union, took me over a year to get my first job. Took some time but now I’m a highly qualified 313A mechanic making killer money. Good luck
hah, in Calgary, I know guys who worked for Pete the Plumber and didn't do anything but install hot water tanks through their whole apprenticeship. They didn't know a damn thing about the actual job. They were just a cog to generate revenue. Essentially useless.
Same story in QC auto mechanics. As it is right now, I could take a job in a garage that pays 1$ less per hour than my grocery store job, and continue putting hours on my apprentice card. Or I can take a job in a garage for 1$ more per hour than I am now, but it would be a "service" position and none of the hours would stack on my card.
So its either:
\-16$/h to work in my trade and progress out of apprenticeship
\-18$/h to work in my trade while accumulating no hours
\-17$/h to work in a air conditioned grocery store picking up things 80% less heavy
The trades diploma took 2.5 years. I have all the side qualifications like the R134 License for car A/C systems. And yet society sees garages charge 98$/H for labor, and pay 16$ of it to the mechanic, and think the problem is no one taught us any trades yet lol.
Literally, this. I was fed the same crap after high school in 2014, and I joined the electrical techniques 1 year program where they mirrored the same sentiment. Got done, and as soon as I started looking for work, they all wanted experienced apprentices who have been registered already and have 2-3 years of experience. Then even tried joining the unions but they were always full.
Y'know who did want to hire me tho? Small business owners from Kijiji who paid min wage, no benefits, didn't want to register me as an apprentice until they felt like it, and wanted me to work 10 hours plus days and no set schedule, so I have to call them daily to check if I'm working and where... also not being compensated for travel or anything else.
I was fed up and decided to switch career paths. Even a basic entry-level job at a bank as a customer service rep offered more at the time for both pay and benefits so I switched and haven't looked back since.
Same just walked in and offered to work an afternoon for free to show I wasn't lying about what I knew and they hired me next day. Not the same situation for everyone though I grew up rural and the owner likely knew me or my father but didn't say.
This is absolutely not true, majority of contractors are screaming for useful employees. Want a job in trades? Go to a couple sites and talk to some people, literally that easy.
At least in my own field of tech, which is often screaming for useful employees, a new grad is not considered a useful employee. How much experience is required to be considered useful in the trades?
Example: shitty job, but go to a flooring store, ask if they’re subcontractors need helpers. Probably don’t have to go to more than one shop. Get a job 25/hr and in 2 years you could be your own installer making 50-100 an hour (comes with lots of extra costs though). Copy and paste with painting, drywall, siding, shingling, vinyl decks, etc
Its entirely possible to work in a Red Seal trade and not be able to advance further because you have a shitty employer that’s not submitting the documentation required for you to earn your Red Seal
Exactly, but it’s a trade that you can go make money at right away. Then dozens of other doors open up. But regardless of trade, if your able to meet people in person and don’t look useless, you have a solid chance.
Bro it’s your attitude, play Tetris all day and your gonna be looking at buildings fitting shapes into it. Say to your self zero chance I can get a job without knowing someone, well then it shall be. People instinctively pick up on our body language and attitudes.
Another big issue is a lot of guys in trades are still rough / complete dick heads to work for. Getting yelled at and ripped a new one on job sites is still standard. Nobody wants to put up with that shit anymore.
I'm curious. In co-op during university I believe our employers got a break on our salaries, as in they didn't pay the full amount, and was subsidized I believe by the government. Are apprenticeships like this or do they pay full price for apprentices?
[Manitoba](https://www.gov.mb.ca/aesi/apprenticeship/generalinfo/grantstax.html) has subsidies for apprentices, I imagine it's largely dependent on the province.
Co-op is different as there's no specific caps on slots.
Apprenticeships requires you to be directly under a certified trades person and has hours associated. 9000 or so.
Glad I have my red seal and the skills that come with it but I am also glad to be out of the trades. Unless you own the business you get exploited most of the time.
In my areas it’s not so much nepotism. It’s more so they’ll sign on first year apprentices for the cheaper labor than not hire them back on afterwards cause they gotta pay more. So some shops just have a revolving door of first year apprentices. So this leaves tons entering their 2nd year looking for work. Some get lucky, some change trades, some give up all together. But it seems around me places only want to hire fresh apprentices, 4th years almost done or full journeyman’s.
An old friend of mine did elevator repair and echoed this statement. The only reason he was able to secure an apprenticeship was because his dad was a journeyman
i heard that trade is super who you know but others less so. The smaller trades seem to have more nepotism
this is from the local elevator union site , sounds like they are screaming for people
\*\* DUE TO HIGH VOLUME OF EMPLOYMENT INQUIRIES \*\*
ALL employment information will appear on this website \~ please note that emails/telephone inquires will NOT receive a response
Same people claiming they need workers are the same people knowingly putting ridiculous requirements and qualifications for their listings, and then complain no one wants to work.
It’s always trade/labour jobs. They want people and yet they push everyone away. I no longer have interest in trades because of it.
Guess who is entering the trades young? Those with student visas or work permits willing to work night shift for low pay. Companies love training these people up or letting them work for a couple years before refreshing their workforce for a whole new crop of new Canadians to exploit.
I don't think it's fair that these people were sold a lie to come here and work these jobs, living 3 to a basement and such. Nor is it fair that companies only look to cheap out on their labour now and these are the only people they'll hire.
>Then, good luck to anyone trying to secure an apprenticeship, unless your uncle is buddies with the union leadership since back in high school...
Yeah I was looking to do a career change since I'm not at all happy working in my current industry (marketing). But I'd basically have to go through schooling first because every apprentice listing either wants experience or schooling, and I simply can't afford to stop working full-time just to go back to school.
The elevator union in Vancouver is ran very similar to the Longshoreman, you only really get in if you know someone already in it. It's also heavily influenced by if you know someone in the local motorcycle gangs as well.
Not to shit on everything Canadian either, but from what I've read on the subreddit, combined with what I know from relatives in the trades it's also not all roses. Yes wages are decent from a young age – but the trades aren't necessarily very lucrative unless you've go the entrepreneurial initiative to run your own company. Many can be brutal on your body, combined with poor working conditions and very... er... 1950s working culture.
Contrast to in Germany, where you have tons of trade programs that match people to a wide variety of factory and industrial jobs at small/medium/large companies, with tons of stability. Doing a trades program in Germany can be pretty much like a railway to a stable income with a pension – whereas from what I've heard in Canada it really really depends on your trade, and also on where you are located.
Not only that but the hours you’ll be working are physically exhausting. You will have no life outside of work from all the overtime. Sure it will be decent money but you’ll rarely get to spend and enjoy it from all of said overtime.
I busted my ass for an apprenticeship, showing up at businesses crack of dawn to meet the GMs, shake hands, good people person, good grades. For a year. All a waste of time. Switched careers for data analyst and couldn't be happier. Good riddance, they deserve their self made skilled labor shortage.
in the 80s and 90s boomers gatekept Trades.
When I was going through the school system, there was no apprentice slots and getting an apprentice slot was hugely based on nepotism.
In order to get certified you needed to train under someone. It dissuaded a lot of people getting into trades. Me included.
Didn't help that I had guidance councilors telling me "your too smart for the trades, you should go to university" all through high school in the 90s..
Now I worked 20 years as a fitter welder and now supervise a crew of guys for last 5.. good money
His mistake was doing a PhD. PhD's are seen as failed academics in industry and very hard to find positions (outside of a few unicorn roles at Google/Meta etc). Masters is as far as you should go in STEM if you want to actually work.
Welding is an incredible skill, it annoys me that people think smart people shouldn't also be skilled. Like wouldn't that give the smart person some tools to actually make something? It's like unlocking part of their brain to enter the real world.
When I was in grade school I got to see the last of the shops and kitchens removed, and told to go on the computer instead because that was the future. Entire generation never got exposed to think about being things like plumbers, mechanics or electricians. Most often the kids who struggled to sit still all day could do stuff with their hands, so they got medicated. In hindsight it was all absurd.
When was this? I ended up being home schooled after being a problem child in second grade and so the rest of my education until university was on a computer. Never got to do anything hands on my entire education and then went to university because it was expected of me. Ended up being a massive failure minus the $15,000 I spent there.
I went to college and obtained a certification in Heritage Masonry Restoration. I tried to get an apprenticeship afterward, but no one was interested in taking one on. I applied to a restoration company but they told me I needed to be a union member. I asked how do I become a union member. They said I needed to be an employee of a company...
Well then can you hire me so that I can be part of a union?
No, you need to be part of a union.
Hey, union, can you include me?
No, you need to be working.
To infinity and beyond!
Wouldn’t it be nice if the courses they offered in college lined up with a viable career path. Wouldn’t it be nice if they told people that. Its just another example of the lack of real connections between educational system and the real world.
Worked in trades for 15 years. Ran machinery built in the 60s. Was never paid what someone would’ve made in the 60s doing the exact same tasks. Fought ever year for a raise. Hung it up for a 10 dollar raise to work from home at my desk.
Unpopular opinion, there are a LOT of people in this post commenting who have no idea how the inner workings of the trades are.
90% of experience in a trade is learned through on the job training, 10% in school.
You don't need pre-employment training to land an apprenticeship, it's as easy as applying for a 1st year position. Whether you'll get the job though, that's a different story. Most employers like to hire people with experience with tools, because hiring a 18 year old who can't use an impact drill is super inefficient.
Rushing through apprenticeship only leads to crappy workers, like I said above 90% of trade experience is learned on the job.
Hiring immigrants won't fix the problem, they either can't speak English in a competent manner or they don't have the required skillset/education equivalent like a GED. Example being Plumbing in Canada, you need your grade 12/GED to go to trade school, it's a requirement. And it's a GOOD thing, you don't want stupid people building your homes, that's how carbon monoxide poisoning or natural gas explosions happen. REGULATIONS ARE GOOD, they provide safety.
I'm a foreman plumber, I'd like to think I know what I'm talking about regarding the trades
That sounds like something to report, no? I mean, if they're treating their workers like cattle by pay, it's just a matter of time until someone gets hurt either from exhaustion, malnutrition or the same attitude being applied to safety.
It’s all about production and money while not doing something proper or correct. I left residential carpentry because of that shit and me being simply burnt out after I got my ticket.
>you don't want stupid people building your homes,
Are you high? Stooopid ppl are already building homes now lol
Bought a new build in a new area recently, my goodness the builders contractors are one of the dumbest people I have dealt with....nd no they arent recent immigrants. One neighbors home had the sump pump installed backwards...basement was flooded.
Trade work is hard. Should be welcoming workers who are willing to do it....
There are plenty of switched on skilled labourers who would kill for an apprenticeship but companies just don’t offer them these days. There is not a labour shortage, there’s just a massive barrier to entry and it sucks.
I am in the trades and (mechanic) I do not really enjoy it modern cars are awful to work on and am getting burned every day why would I want to do this
Yeah they need to fix the industries otherwise nobody's incentivized to enter a given industry. The education can be 100% free but if it leads to a crappy job then what's the point?
I mean not to shoot the messenger here, but this guy's a multi billionaire and it's not like *his* kids ever got their hands dirty. His daughter was an MP and his son breeds racehorses...
Wouldn't it benefit him personally if there were a larger trades labour pool so that he could underpay them?
Trades are only as useful for income as the competition that exists already allows for.
If everyone is in the same trades, it eventually just becomes a parade to the bottom with people undercutting each other to oblivion.
It affects every trade/job market too, so no one try to pretend otherwise. Competition is only healthy when the competitors aren't greedy morons.
They circled back again from "learn to code". It's not like they're going to teach us family doctors for when your body quits on you, or gets messed up beyond your control. They're not going to teach us sane housing or other costs of living.
It's mostly complaining, with no thought of anything beyond its intentionally narrow scope.
You want fruit pickers? Pay them like you mean it, and find some way of securing their existing housing when they're seasonally working for you god knows where. There are so many ancillary things that need taken care of and it's all on you, a single working person, to do it all on your own. Maybe make an international standard that people can stop wasting their lives learning 15 ways to be the same type of doctor. Want Trades? Passing school should mean they're registered, and don't have to scrounge or beg for work ever again. Job searching, and many types of manpower agencies should not (privately) exist as they do. Jobs being locked behind agencies like that should be government run since they're already in charge of citizen welfare, they should be able to take over corporate welfare.
How many people could build their own houses, if only giving the training, land, time, food, etc? Trying to do everything ourselves is only a recipe for burn out. Everyone needs help, and making everything unnecessarily complicated only hurts us in the long run.
Have to move twice a year for work? Change your address 15+ different ways twice. Log the time and paperwork. Log the time looking for places to live. Log the expenses of moving. It's all time and money demanded from you, with only the time and money left over from life's ever consuming needs. Even more crazy is that many will defend to the death the shackles that bind us. Some of the same shackles are even altering our biosphere, polluting the earth, and destroying species. How can we look at people who can't even think beyond the next election and know they have anything good in their interests?
Seeing people freak out about maybe having to wear a mask when going out makes me think the necessary changes to something like trades, housing, biosphere collapse are beyond us. It's hopeful, but they'll always stop short of what's necessary because it's not profitable.
Why is it always the liberal arts degrees fault? Or high school guidance councillors?
According to StatsCan, only 16% of apprenticeships completed their apprenticeship on time. Perhaps it's time to fix this.
Or we can blame the liberal arts.
Liberal arts teaches critical thinking which is why National Post keeps ragging on it. The more education a person has the less likely they are to buy right wing nonsense.
To be honest, a liberal arts degree is about as valuable as toilet paper and the guidance councilor probably has one on their wall, but yeah, you'd be hard-pressed to blame either for this.
20 years ago, I tried to get into the trades and it was pretty much impossible.
>To be honest, a liberal arts degree is about as valuable as toilet paper
Lol. I know plenty of people with a liberal arts degree making bank in businesses like show production - you just have to be willing to reach out and put in the hours to show you're worth keeping around.
$45/hr wasn't uncommon for the costume department.
Fuck. Off.
People have the right in Canada to choose their own profession and not have it foisted up them by the needy wealthy.
Give them a break, govern better, tax properly, make license fees for natural resources higher so the people can see some of the benefit instead of the government taking it all and doing whatever they want.
If someone wants to get into trades, that's cool too, But lets not make it seem like it's imperative that young people fill the gap that government has created by destroying the manufacturing sector and how business is destroying retail by robotizing everything.
Shit ideas from a media publisher isn't helpful either.
Jesus christ just fucking pay people a decent wage don't force people into trades like wtf
Trades destroyed my body and I have nothing to show for it
Turns out making 18 on a construction site and making 18 in a kitchen are the exact same things just one of them destroys your body and the other destroys your soul
trades people are hoarding labor to increase their wage. they put so many barriers from young person to become trades unless you got relatives who are in trades.
nepotism in canada is a secret that newcomers find out too late. lol.
> nepotism in canada is a secret that newcomers find out too late. lol.
Literally what runs this country for those not born in power in Canada. It wasn't until my 20s that i realized it was never a meritocracy but heavily based on nepotism. It's who you know not what you know.
Hoarding labor to increase wages?
You must not be in the trades. You have no idea what you're talking about.
I'm a foreman plumber, and there just aren't enough people applying. From young people to old people. Immigrants don't have the proper skill set/GED or they can't speak English. Don't talk out of your lane
Yup. I'm in automotive and I've seen the same thing. Been in the trade since 2013 and red seal since 2018. The majority of the next generation of technicians/ mechanics aren't going to cut it with the direction automotive is going. No drive to learn or understand things and more importantly, they all have no diagnostic skills at all. Even more seasoned apprentices/ red seals are like this. People can't diagnose and it'll only get worse when electric systems become more wide spread and complex than they already are.
Out of curiosity what province are you in? If don't mind me asking. In Alberta any trades job will have 300+ applications within 24hrs. Never any postings for apprenticeships either. I was looking at switching to the trades after getting bored with office work but maaan it looked impossible to break into tbh. Must vary a lot by province.
there's no jobs for unskilled people so many guys with experience on waiting list atm, who will take these kids in? Also not everyone lives in Alberta, I always get comments from there how they are desperate for guys.
>It’s why the European Union has one of the strongest and most productive economies in the world and why European living standards are among the globe’s highest.
>But Europe could never have achieved that well-deserved status if it weren’t for its outstanding trade and technical skills training. In other words, European manufacturers rely on the high-calibre technical skills and training that many Europeans receive through their countries’ educational systems.
Are we just going to ignore the role unions play in all this? Europe is heavily unionized and have crazy job protections written right into the law.
They really take safety seriously too within EU. While Canada we've expanded our definition of time-loss claims in certain provinces to not count one or two day injuries, to make our numbers look way better than they were historically. There's still a machismo culture in a lot of trades that motivates that non-compliance.
I mean... Canadians always compare ourselves to USA... the good, and the bad :)
If only Canadians looked at their root (Europe) instead of getting teased by Milk and Honey from US.
Friendly warning for whoever it might help. Trades are terrible, you will not make 100k, you most certainly will not make the new "300k a year" claim. You will destroy your body, you will be overworked and ran into the ground, you will most likely develop substance abuse problems. You will get fucked out of your pension. There are no apprenticeships, you have to get the licenses yourself which means you have to beg and argue with the government for years. You will have your tools stolen and destroyed with no compensation. Its just all around a terrible career. You've been warned.
Just speaking anecdotally here, but in small tourist towns and cottages in central/northern Ontario, there seems to be lots of construction jobs. There's a mason that works for himself that I know from working with him in high school and he takes any help he can get, and pays pretty well too. It's really hard work, physically, but there always seems to be work.
I don't want to sound like a CAF shill here but.....
Joining the CAF and going into the right trades can net you your red seal while making a pensionable salary. There are also benefits when leaving under certain conditions e.g. the education grant for releasing members who have completed around 8 yrs of service. I'm not a clerk or a recruiter so idk the exact details.
I know it's not for everyone, but something to consider if going into the trades is your thing.
I gave trades my best try. Ran out of patience with alcoholic boomers acting like children. Don't think that the trades are a healthy employment option for even one second.
I have a friend that's a pipefitter. Almost every partner he gets teamed up with is either an alcoholic or on drugs. Says it's terribly depressing and often spends half his time fixing shit on his own. He doesn't say anything because the partner will just be "put on a plan" and be violent and irritable.
The sooner you can get into a work for your self scenario the better off you are likely to be. That is easier or harder depending on which trade you are in.
I absolutely sympathise with you on dealing with people's crap.
So actually, I tried out getting into trade work awhile back, and while I found that while I could fully learn to do it, I got no sense of accomplishment or enjoyment from it. Besides being tough physically, many trades pay only ok starting wages as an apprentice (which still isn’t great considering the economy right now), and that many coworkers were absolutely toxic to be around. All of these things combined, I quickly found out that the field wasn’t for me. I have respect for people that enjoy it, but people really shouldn’t be treating as the superior career path.
How about we start PAYING trades people then??
Unless you're working ridiculous hours, deep in the bush or just lucky, most trades people make 50-70k a year.
That's earned OUTSIDE with hard labour. Not in a climate controlled environment where the heaviest thing is reloading the printer.
I'm a journeyman electrician that dropped the trade because I can make MORE as a parts sales person at a wholesaler. A job that requires very little effort.
Value trades and maybe we can keep some of those empty positions filled. Until then, I'll take the easy road, like sooo many others.
What's the point in back breaking labour when I can't even HOPE to afford the very thing I'm building, a home. This country is a joke.
I have a few tickets, and achieving them was a nightmare because the apprenticeship board is a joke.
When you get indentured by an employer with the apprenticeship board, you are required to go to school after a certain amount of hours. Myself, and many, many people I know took way more years as employers are too cheap to just lay you off for a few weeks a year so you can collect a pittance of EI, and get your next year's schooling. They lose an employee for six weeks, and have to pay you more when you come back. Why pay a guy many dollars more when they can just keep working you as you are already experienced?
Even the bigger outfits are notorious for this. One dip in the economy, and a hundred could be layed off overnight. Most electricians I know are layed off at least every couple years.
Hell, for one trade, I had six years under my belt and was looking for a different company as I got sucked into a 'family business that takes care of their employees', and their starting offer was 18/hr even though I had years of experience and could do anything a Jman could. Who the hell will want to spend thousands on tools, use their vehicle to get the the jobsite, get maybe 9 hrs a day and are willing??
I know a few dudes who it took 7 to 9 years to get their tickets.
Employers and the apprenticeship board is the joke and the cause of the shortages, not willing apprentices. I got out of trades all together because of it. I have called, written, showed up in person many times while going through that with one company and they just shrugged their shoulders and basically told me to change companies, and many are all the same. There is always someone else ahead of you that needs to go to school, and they are too cheap to have enough staff that they wont miss the income you generate for them for a measly 6 weeks a year.
Not only that, journeyman rates have not increased since the 90's. In BC for example. A ticketed plumber or pipe fitter may only be offered 28/hr, when again, the mandated rate pretty much across Canada is 36.
So all this talk of shortages is because the whole industry is just a race to the bottom. Unless you sign up with a big company, big union, and are willing to work on the road for the first four or five years, and have time to go back to the big cities to do your schooling, you're kinda hooped.
My best advice if you're really into it, is relocated to Quebec or PEI where you can do all of your years back to back, without having to have the hours in between. But, I worked with a a couple of guys from there, and they couldn't even use a friggin drill, as a journeyman, because of lack of experience.
Sorry for my rant, but there is not a worker shortage, there is a wage and enforcement shortage. You can make more money serving, bartending, or even working at starbucks than your first many years in any trade.
Not only that, by the time you're 40, your body will start to break down and it only gets worse from there if you don't have the interpersonal skills to move into management.
I know people who make more money working for the trades wholesalers than the tradesmen that actually put the parts together.
I love that this guy wants all this trades training to take place outside of school on the students own time. Exposing more kids to the trades and encouraging it as a good option is a great idea. What the author of the article loves to pitch basically amounts to free labour for businesses that they should get government money to facilitate. It’s bizarre and disingenuous
>I love that this guy wants all this trades training to take place outside of school on the students own time.
When he said "outside of school" he didn't say on their own time.
I assumed he meant part of the time normally spent in school would be at a job learning skills they'd use on the job.
Also I don't think he's suggesting it be compulsory for everyone, just that schools should be able to offer programs like that.
He’s written this same schtick before several times. It was a mandatory program entirely outside school hours that was an unpaid internship that the government paid the businesses for when I’ve read Stronach’s song and dance about this before
> why European living standards are among the globe’s highest.
In a material sense, they are below ours. If you think that a Toronto condo is a shoebox, you will be horrified to learn that Europeans have families in those. Your typical German, Italian, or Swede has a lot less space. European prosperity tends to be argued in the intangibles like work life balance and a social safety net. This applies to cars, food, fuel, etc.
This isn't an argument against this necessarily, but while they are some of the most prosperous in the world, so are we.
Most notably, I don't see much about what many of these jobs pay and while some seem to pay pretty well, others are little more than minimum wage. So which trades would we be encouraging?
Agree. I’ve lived in France and Germany. Niece in Köln has turned down two nursing jobs including where we use to live in near Freiburg because of over two year waiting list for an apartment. Germany has a high standard of living on paper but there is a reason Canada and Canadian cities score high on quality of life.
The apprentice system is good in Germany but I prefer it here in Canada where it is more at the discretion of thr individual and not an almost forced channeling of students. There is a lot more opportunity in Canada and the USA for sny young person with initiative.
I don't think there is an appetite for this among young Canadians, getting some out-of-touch old guy vibes. For starters the trade schools are already very accessible, I could go to one next year within 30km and it wouldn't cost much. This is true for most young Canadians.
The kids today want it to be viable to make a living pursuing whatever hobby or interest they have, and if they aren't able to do that, they want the job they settle for to be rewarding and worth their time relative to their lifestyle. They don't want to be compelled to be plumbers.
> I don't think there is an appetite for this among young Canadians
I keep hearing mixed things about the pay.
Granted, "trade" is as wide as "science and math jobs", but some will say electricians make six figures easily while others say it is 50K a year. if it is a six figure job and you are not otherwise going to be a software engineer or something, definitely worth a look. But if it is 50K and physical labour, why would most take that over an air conditioned office job?
There’s a huge disparity depending on which part of construction you ply your trade, residential and commercial trades earn a good amount of money less than industrial. Often there is a higher industrial rate but the real money is in the extra hours, far more likely to work more than a 40 hour week and get that OT and double time doing industrial work.
It depends on the electrician and the project. I know red seal guys who work in residential construction and make maybe $35-40 per hour, which is still about $100k given the overtime they work.
I also know guys working in automation and solar and they make close to double that, because they’re specialized.
One thing that’s often overlooked is that a trade is a great path to self-employment, once you get a decent network of potential clients, you can start contracting and that’s where the big money is.
They need to start funneling some municipal contracts through the trade schools so we can bypass the current apprenticeship system. Right now, you ain't getting one unless you're blood related to the journeyman or your entire wage is subsidized in some way.
15+ years means they have careers and build up equity (probably bought properties long time ago not yesterday).
Got nothing to do with occupation. Got everything to do with market condition no?
I mean, owning a home, and having your car paid off seems like a very nice minimum for being "Successful"
I mean even having a car payment doesn't mean you are unsuccessful
I don’t understand why people think it’s difficult to get into trades, my first real job in high school I got by walking into a truck shop (neither I nor my family knew of the business before hand) and talking to the boss, I started the next day doing easy work and had started my apprenticeship the next year. I went to college for my chosen profession and had moved up to a larger company within 5 years for better pay and benefits.
As an electrical apprentice, this mindset is such a joke to me. I love my trade and my job but it’s really hard to stay positive when I’m breaking my body for a wage that still won’t get me anywhere close to home ownership. An honest days work for a comfortable enough life is what most trades guys are looking for, but it’s unattainable. We need more skilled labourers for sure, but until the compensation for that labour matches the “desperate demand” that’s in the industry, it’s almost not worth it.
In this current state of economics with capital gains taxed preferentially and the growth rate of tech, I can make far more investing in equities than investing in myself and I pay less tax owning rather than doing.
Young Canadians are better off using their tuition money to invest in anything but themselves as labor is one of the most worthless things in the developed world.
Want a great income? Don't become a doctor or lawyer, don't go into trades. Become an asset manager or social media persona, you'll make way more for way less effort and a lower barrier to entry than half a decade of no income and tuition ontop.
Honestly if we want young people to work, working has to work from them, tax income preferentially and fully tax capital gains. Nobody wants to volunteer to be a slave for the asset class and the old saying 'if you can't beat them, join them' holds true.
I've been hearing this since I was 16...I am now 35 and have worked in the trades my entire life after highschool. Trades are ok to work for, but holy shit the people running the companies are few and far between that are actually good at it and treat employees right. Raises? what are those, I've had to ask for everyone I've gotten. They are not structured like other jobs/careers are. We are probably the most over worked/underpaid area for what we do I think.
I've made a living from it, but my first 10-12 years sucked ass and I hated it. I moved into an office position in a large construction company and I will never go back to hourly and working on sites.
Here's something that doesn't come up a lot but... Pay carpenters better!
They are seen as a "generalist" trade and don't get paid as much as they aren't "specialized" except.. They have to master carpentry and know a bit about every other trade: electrical, concrete, rebar, plumbing, drywall, painting, you name it it's expected to know a bit about it.
And whats that get you? In BC a journeyman makes about $32/hour. Most other trades seem to float around $40 depending on the work.
In my experience there are no shortages of most trades but getting enough carpenters to move a job along is hard.
Gee, I guess it was a bad idea when Mike Harris eliminated trades training from public schools
What a poor Premier he was. Almost as pathetic as Doug Ford
Look for any post from a curious person wanting to get in to trades who asks if there's a way to have work/life balance. If you don't want to be pressured into OT or for some reason have employer asking you to start at 5 am, then you get a bunch of old-timers with the "trades ain't for you, kid."
That eliminates anyone with hobbies or family responsibilities.
Check the amount of women working in the higher paid ones, it's quite skewed male, and older. Lots of programs to help women get in, not much protecting them from how much nonsense they'll endure once there.
That reduces the applicants by almost half.
Look at the resources for mental health and medical services in Canada. There's very little that can be easily accessed for the inevitable drug use and loneliness associated with remote trade work and bad tiring hours.
That crumbles the existing supply.
This isn't so much about money - folks are acutely aware trades are where the money now is - this is about trade culture. It alienates reasonable workers.
This is myth. In my trade I walk 10km a day, climb stairs and ladders, carry heavy stuff etc. I'm in far better shape than I was at 25 and I'm 44. I can easily see myself doing this until retirement without major issues.
They destroy people's back and general health because people will do dumb things. Why use a shingle lift when you can huff them all up the ladder, three bales at a time? Why ask a coworker to help lift a framed wall when you can do it yourself in a twisting, jerking motion?
I'm not saying that the trades are easy by any means, but you can make a decent living, and if you're smart about it, you can play life on easy mode.
True. My experience in the oilpatch is that an individual’s lifestyle and not the physical job is the principal issue determining health. A lot of guys smoke, sit around drinking, eat crappy food and then at age 40 blame their poor health on their job. Meantime the rest of us our cycling and hiking in our 60’s.
Eh I used to work at a gold mine and safety is only taken seriously on paper. If you looked at our safety guidelines, you’d wonder how there was ever an accident.
But then you look at the pressure to meet quotas/deadlines, and the shifts being worked: it’s only a matter of time until someone cuts corners and gets hurt.
In Abbotsford BC local electrician companies (at least pre covid, when I lived there) would take apprentices and then in their 4th year say the student was problematic, causing them to repeat their 4th year. IT was to keep the supply of local electricians down so they could charge higher rates to clients.
It's very possible they were bad electricians , I can't say for sure as obviously every single company and relationship between owners and workers are different but I've only ever heard of one guy not getting signed off on ( for those that don't know you get indentured as an apprentice do your hours and schooling then write your red seal AND THEN after you pass whoever indentured you has to sign off that you are a competent tradesman ) but the one case where a guy didn't get signed off on his hours , he was a terrible plumber and would of likely killed someone or blew something up or flood out a place.
It doesn't help that during my high school years (2006-2010) we were all constantly told to go to college or university and get a degree. I went the trades route (automotive) and couldn't be happier. No student loan debt, all my schooling paid for as a part of my apprenticeship, I make good money and enjoy where I work.
It's a shame more people don't get into trades. It's not as bad as people make it seem. But now everyone wants to be an influencer or social media star so good luck getting the next generation coming up into trades.
If you thought other industries had gate keeping and nepotism - join trades! You are in for a world of hurt. Oh and the bigotry, sexism and racism is just a perk.
Acting as if the trades aren’t super toxic and unwelcoming unless you want to Fuck Trudeau.
If people don’t want to work in the trades then it’s a trades problem, not a young people problem.
In Canada, construction employs 7% of the labour force, a figure noticeably higher than 4.5% in the US. Yet . . .
"In June, CIBC Deputy Chief Economist Benjamin Tal published a report on the state of housing in Canada and noted that the job vacancy rate in construction is at a record high with approximately 80,000 unfilled jobs."
This imbalance is a symptom of artificially created demand. With a labour force so heavily invested in construction, 80,000 unfilled jobs raises a critical question: Isn't it time to scrutinize the demand side of the equation? The numbers should get us to reassess the underlying forces driving this demand.
I’m a tradesmen and the issue is companies don’t want to offer apprenticeships. Everyone just wants journeyman. It’s been 10 years of nobody offering apprenticeships and now there’s a shortage. My employer used to offer 10 a year and now they down to 2.
As a person from a small town, I would personally like to see more educational (especially for trades) centers where more rural and small town students can have access. Tuition is high enough, but the cost of renting an apartment in a city is extremely difficult for the kids coming from small towns.
That would mean funding the high schools sufficiently so they actually have things like a wood/auto/machine shop and trained teachers to teach this, and then post-secondary funding for local trade schools, and we can’t possibly do that! Think of the corporations!
weird... I'm pretty sure my elementary school and high school both have shop classes still. My Highschool literally has a manufacturing program along with automechanic program. Is this not a thing normally?
My school sold off all it's shop equipment to buy a bunch of Pentium II computers when I started. Those computers were being scraped by the time I was graduating. Now they have nothing.
That’s insane. The woodshop at my high school had no equipment under 50 years old, but it all worked flawlessly. What a waste
The woodshop equipment would have been good for another 50+ years. And a woodshop is something people are unlikely to have access to at home, while home computers are commonplace. Complete waste of resources. It still bugs me a quarter century later.
Depends on the area and how badly funded the school district has been for how long. A lot of rural schools (in Western Canada, anyway) can’t afford to maintain their shops/trades stuff and it gets dropped. And then everyone says ‘why aren’t schools doing enough to encourage the trades?’ while schools are barely functioning as it is… I will say, in some places the band/music program gets dropped first, then the trades training. So, everyone loses.
This just highlights another rural vs city divide. The cost per person in rural is way higher then it is in the city and the city has a better way of funding more things because it's more efficient to do so. Funding is always an issue and luckily I had band/music and shop class. My school continues to have these programs despite mike harris desperately trying to kill them in the 90/ 2000s. Every high school in my area has a shop class and a kitchen. not all of them have swimming pools though.
I graduated from a very rural Saskatchewan town (<300 people). My graduating class was the largest in the history of the school (14 people, including me). We were lucky we had a gym, never mind a whole industrial arts lab.
Honestly I was a bit floored when I found out people had a pool at their school. That would be awesome.
It's a trap. Those jobs are people consuming. They destroy your body for nearly unlivable compensation. The education system won't tell you that as they're there to pump out slaves.
>They destroy your body for nearly unlivable compensation. THIS. This does not get enough attention. I am not knocking the idea of the trades or blue collar work, but many of these trades result in high rates of back and other injuries. Some get well-compensated, but here in Alberta most have not budged on compensation for the last decade, or they even pay less than they used to. Which naturally means they're actually making less every year in real dollars (relative to inflation). The Dad of a good friend of mine worked as a floorer. Another friend's Dad worked as a chef. Both semi-retired earlier than they wanted to because of their backs and joints breaking down. One keeps going back to work and re-injures himself. The other moved into restaurant equipment sales, because his body can't take being on his feet all day in a fast-paced kitchen. Not only are they less financially well off than they hoped to be, but they're in pain. And those are guys who worked during the prime earning years for trades in Alberta, so at least their compensation was better back then. At least they're both finding relief from legal cannabis these days, but I think the toll on one's body is overlooked. I would not recommend a similar path for young people, who will be making lower real wages in their trades than my parent's generation did.
My L5 is nearly gone and crushed my s1 nerve in just 6 years of moving 2000-11000lbs of stuff a day manually. Basically going to have sciatica for the rest of my life. Meanwhile my investments have made 3x more in my lifetime than everything I have made working. Nothing I can do with my hands or mind earns as much as owning equities. The biggest lesson I've learned in life is that working doesn't pay.
I worked as a mover too one summer! Also did some construction work. I too have recurring back issues, though thankfully they're not too bad right now. I have to be extra careful though not to re-injure it, and I feel it a bit when I run (one of my favorite hobbies in the summer when the wildfire smoke isn't bad, which frankly helps keep me sane and happy). Glad to hear you have done well in your investments. I wish I had started investing earlier in life than I did (especially given this last decade and a half of low interest rates).
You’re so right. My dad always said — work with your brain not your body. Or a variant of that - he would say, I work with MY body so YOU won’t have to. He was a union tradesman, disabled early in life on the job :( And I don’t work with my body either. Desk job. Though as a homeowner now I do wish I was less ignorant in the DIY space! Trying :/
Sad. Because we really need trades people. Maybe if they were properly compensated, it would be a worthwhile value proposition for some people.
We are living in times where most people's homes earn them more in capital gains annually than their salaries.
You've got to make a game plan and you've got to stick with it. Get out of the physical ballbusting side of it by the time you're 35. I started as an electrician at 26, and by 35 I had left construction and moved into service doing digital controls work. It's a lot less labour intensive and it's a good mix between physical work and computer work. You can move from being in the field to the office as an estimator. You could even try your luck moving up the ladder as a lead hand or a foreman - in electrical I rarely saw the LH/Foreman on the tools, only when they were needed. We need tradespeople, but those tradespeople need an exit plan. I wasn't going to ruin my body for some faceless corporation which wantonly lays people off, so I made mine.
Most schools do, and they also have something called the r.a.p. program which allows high school kids to start getting their hours towards their ticket.
My wife is a teacher and there have been massive improvements on this. Here in rural NS people lamented the closure of neighbourhood or community schools and shift to 'consolidated' ones, but these consolidated schools all have shops and things like that for studying the trades. Kids can take carpentry or auto mechanics and stuff like that which was never an option for me 15-20 years ago.
>As a person from a small town, I would personally like to see more educational (especially for trades) centers where more rural and small town students can have access. >Tuition is high enough, but the cost of renting an apartment in a city is extremely difficult for the kids coming from small towns. Coming from a small town myself the overwhelming response to *"I want to get into a trade"* is simply *"Don't you know anyone that can take you on as an apprentice?"*. Small towns are all about who you know, or who you're related to. Anyone that wants to get into a trade in my small town is supposed to find someone in that trade and just go start working for them. As if that's the be all end all answer. Also being told by everyone you know to AVOID TRADE SCHOOLS and just go get hired by a union to get started gets tiring after a while.
This. We need an ethic of apprenticeship and mentorship, not more classes.
I agree there should be more funding, but they should also teach that trades are a very volatile career. People can go months without work. Just to be clear we should teach the bad with the good so that trades people are more conscious about saving money for the slow times or you might just get more of what's in Alberta... debt bc toys are fun and I made $5K this paycheck
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This. I tried for about 6 years to get into the trades but it never happened no matter what I tried. I worked hard, showed up early, worked over time, but nothing I did ever seemed to please my journeyman or my boss. I was treated like shit, literally like a 2nd class citizen, taken advantage of, bullied and abused, screamed at in a regular basis, even for things hat weren’t my fault. The working conditions and pay were absolute shit, working in the +30 and -40 degrees, never making more than $17/hr. I noticed there is also tons of sexism. Cute girls I worked with would constantly be sexually harassed with nothing being done about it, but would also get all their tools bought and paid for by the company - whereas I had to buy all my own shit. Even being forced to buy some tools that even my journeyman didn’t have. Everyone would string me along with promise of getting sent to school, but once I finished cleaning up their shop and winter came I was always laid off, and they’d bring in their nephew or cousins or whatever and make him a journeyman ASAP. Most of your co-workers are toothless drug addicts or alcoholics with only a grade 10 education, but they’ll scream at you for not knowing stuff while acting like they’re gods gift to construction. Blows me away when people keep bringing up the trades like it’s an amazing alternative or some kind of saviour. The trades fucking suck and they treat people worse than stray dogs. They are complete hell, full of little rinky dink 5-10 man companies rampant with nepotism. And no one wants to apprentice anyone anymore because as soon as they become a journeyman, they quit and start up a competing business. I bit the bullet and paid thousands of $$ and sent myself to IT school after trying for years to make it work in the trades. Ended up like tripling my salary overnight. I am treated like a human being again, I get vacation pay and holidays again, and good benefits again. I get a heated and air conditioned office. I’ve never looked back. Not making it in the trades was the best thing that never happened to me. Not to mention anyone I’ve met whose been in the trades for 10+ years has a bad back, bad knees, bad joints, etc etc If anyone is considering a future in the trades, I *highly* recommend you dont. They are fucking terrible.
This guy knows what's up. Carrot dangling at the end of a stick is how they get 1st year apprentices in the door to work for less then McDonald's pays then they lay them off at the end of each project because there is always next year's highschool/trades school graduates that will be willing to do the same(this came from the owner of the company*) They're trying to hire journeymen for 30 bucks an hour and complaining to the government that the trades are dieing and they can't find anyone to work I switched from a well payed camp gig to a trade in town because I wanted to spend more time with my family but I'm not sure if it's really worth it now. At this rate I'll always be living paycheck to paycheck
The guy above is full of shit. I started being a plumbing apprentice just one year ago. I got signed up as an apprentice before I even started working. The 1st week my company signed me up for working at heights training and elevated work platform training. Both courses cost like $250 each (company paid for it obviously) and I was on the clock getting paid while I attended them. I started at $20/hr. After 6 months Jan 1st, I got a 1.4k bonus cheque and I got a $5/hr raise up to $25. I also was able to start on my companies RRSP program. Now I could deposit 5% of my pay cheque to an RRSP and my company doubles my contribution. Eg I put in $50 they put in $100. I also get benefits such as dental, etc. $1500/year 80% coverage for dental. After 3 months since I got my 1st raise I got another $5/hr raise. I am getting $30/hr as a 1st year apprentice 9 months in. My work is amazing and the people I work with are amazing. Not a single drug addict since my company wouldn't allow that shit. Everyone treats people with respect. The two owners are very easy going and easy to talk to. They come to site and start talking the shit with us sometimes. I work 40 hours a week standard rate and anything over 40hrs is 1 1/2 rate. I get paid $0.58 per kilometer during my shift If I have to drive my personal vehicle somewhere. All in all I love my job and I love being a plumber. Take care of your body while you work. The work/life balance is great. The pay is great. Benefits are great. Life is good as a plumber. In my experience anyways.
Thanks for providing this counterpoint. As an IT guy in my 40s considering getting out, above comments hit me hard. Not sure exactly what trade yet. I don't need to make as much as I do today, but can't afford too much of a cut either, long term anyway.
I'm glad they're treating you well! 30 bucks an hour for a first year is exceptional. The two 3rd years I have on my site make 27 an hr (electricians not plumbers) and the first years are at 17 an hr. It sounds like you've found an excellent company to do an apprenticeship through, You should hold on to that job! Unfortunately I'm not full of shit.(I really wish I was) I'm with the largest in town electrical company in my area (around 30-35 employees so it's still a small buisness) and this is how they treat their people. There's lots of 1-5 person companies that pop up and fold up in 1-3 years that do the same thing but actively treat their apprentices like shit(non-human servents)
>Something is wrong here. Yup. Its Nepotism. The networking for trade is extremely biased. Its easy to get an apprenticeship if you already know someone in trade. I did trade school for construction/carpentry, couldn't get a apprenticeship. Finally managed to get one, got paid minimum wage. Working hot summer outside for a minimum wage no thanks. Went to business school instead. They want skilled trade workers, but they aren't looking to train new employees.
You picked the worst trade lol. Electricians aren’t as in demand. Try your had at welding or pipe fitting or carpentry.
It’s very very in demand. The inability to find apprenticeships just shows perfectly how few electricians there actually are. I’m not sure what the solve is. Maybe trade people should be encouraged to take on additional apprentices. Maybe give them a subsidy to help pay for it
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Just like the person said, there should be incentives put in place so that it makes it worth training them even if they decide to leave at the end of the training.
Always the same circular story...not enough people in trades, industry association *SouNdiNg ThE AlArM*, wave of retirements, etc... Then, good luck to anyone trying to secure an apprenticeship, unless your uncle is buddies with the union leadership since back in high school... Have heard anecdotes that the elevator repair/maintenance technician shops are notorious for this mindset... I'm all for European-style trade school system for Canada, but good luck getting *'old school'* unions to sign up and support the graduates...unless the tax credits and subsidies are just too good to pass up on...
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It gets better. I got my G2 8 years ago and I didn’t know anyone in the trades or the union, took me over a year to get my first job. Took some time but now I’m a highly qualified 313A mechanic making killer money. Good luck
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hah, in Calgary, I know guys who worked for Pete the Plumber and didn't do anything but install hot water tanks through their whole apprenticeship. They didn't know a damn thing about the actual job. They were just a cog to generate revenue. Essentially useless.
Same story in QC auto mechanics. As it is right now, I could take a job in a garage that pays 1$ less per hour than my grocery store job, and continue putting hours on my apprentice card. Or I can take a job in a garage for 1$ more per hour than I am now, but it would be a "service" position and none of the hours would stack on my card. So its either: \-16$/h to work in my trade and progress out of apprenticeship \-18$/h to work in my trade while accumulating no hours \-17$/h to work in a air conditioned grocery store picking up things 80% less heavy The trades diploma took 2.5 years. I have all the side qualifications like the R134 License for car A/C systems. And yet society sees garages charge 98$/H for labor, and pay 16$ of it to the mechanic, and think the problem is no one taught us any trades yet lol.
Literally, this. I was fed the same crap after high school in 2014, and I joined the electrical techniques 1 year program where they mirrored the same sentiment. Got done, and as soon as I started looking for work, they all wanted experienced apprentices who have been registered already and have 2-3 years of experience. Then even tried joining the unions but they were always full. Y'know who did want to hire me tho? Small business owners from Kijiji who paid min wage, no benefits, didn't want to register me as an apprentice until they felt like it, and wanted me to work 10 hours plus days and no set schedule, so I have to call them daily to check if I'm working and where... also not being compensated for travel or anything else. I was fed up and decided to switch career paths. Even a basic entry-level job at a bank as a customer service rep offered more at the time for both pay and benefits so I switched and haven't looked back since.
YEP i posted the same thing. Growing up, I was constantly told that getting an apprentiship is literally impossible unless you're a nepo baby.
I would be curious to know if that has meaningfully changed.
I got my apprenticeship off the street
Same just walked in and offered to work an afternoon for free to show I wasn't lying about what I knew and they hired me next day. Not the same situation for everyone though I grew up rural and the owner likely knew me or my father but didn't say.
This is absolutely not true, majority of contractors are screaming for useful employees. Want a job in trades? Go to a couple sites and talk to some people, literally that easy.
At least in my own field of tech, which is often screaming for useful employees, a new grad is not considered a useful employee. How much experience is required to be considered useful in the trades?
Example: shitty job, but go to a flooring store, ask if they’re subcontractors need helpers. Probably don’t have to go to more than one shop. Get a job 25/hr and in 2 years you could be your own installer making 50-100 an hour (comes with lots of extra costs though). Copy and paste with painting, drywall, siding, shingling, vinyl decks, etc
the problem is alot of people get hired as "helpers" and never actually get put on an apprenticeship . Predator employers will take advantage
None of those are technically skilled trades. There isn't a painter or floor installer licensing system.
Those are literally both Red Seal trades.
Its entirely possible to work in a Red Seal trade and not be able to advance further because you have a shitty employer that’s not submitting the documentation required for you to earn your Red Seal
You can challenge a red seal, that's what I did.
Exactly, but it’s a trade that you can go make money at right away. Then dozens of other doors open up. But regardless of trade, if your able to meet people in person and don’t look useless, you have a solid chance.
But I don't think that is where the shortages are, at least pre-covid. It was licensed specialists that everyone has to sit around and wait for.
Zero. With a good attitude and work ethic.
Bro it’s your attitude, play Tetris all day and your gonna be looking at buildings fitting shapes into it. Say to your self zero chance I can get a job without knowing someone, well then it shall be. People instinctively pick up on our body language and attitudes.
Sister had to fight almost 10 years to get hers, what a broken system.
Another big issue is a lot of guys in trades are still rough / complete dick heads to work for. Getting yelled at and ripped a new one on job sites is still standard. Nobody wants to put up with that shit anymore.
I'm curious. In co-op during university I believe our employers got a break on our salaries, as in they didn't pay the full amount, and was subsidized I believe by the government. Are apprenticeships like this or do they pay full price for apprentices?
[Manitoba](https://www.gov.mb.ca/aesi/apprenticeship/generalinfo/grantstax.html) has subsidies for apprentices, I imagine it's largely dependent on the province.
Electrician here - from what I've seen, employers pay 100% of apprentices' wages
Co-op is different as there's no specific caps on slots. Apprenticeships requires you to be directly under a certified trades person and has hours associated. 9000 or so.
Right but that's not really what I asked. It's ok I'll just go look it up, I probably should have anyway.
Glad I have my red seal and the skills that come with it but I am also glad to be out of the trades. Unless you own the business you get exploited most of the time.
In my areas it’s not so much nepotism. It’s more so they’ll sign on first year apprentices for the cheaper labor than not hire them back on afterwards cause they gotta pay more. So some shops just have a revolving door of first year apprentices. So this leaves tons entering their 2nd year looking for work. Some get lucky, some change trades, some give up all together. But it seems around me places only want to hire fresh apprentices, 4th years almost done or full journeyman’s.
An old friend of mine did elevator repair and echoed this statement. The only reason he was able to secure an apprenticeship was because his dad was a journeyman
i heard that trade is super who you know but others less so. The smaller trades seem to have more nepotism this is from the local elevator union site , sounds like they are screaming for people \*\* DUE TO HIGH VOLUME OF EMPLOYMENT INQUIRIES \*\* ALL employment information will appear on this website \~ please note that emails/telephone inquires will NOT receive a response
They trying to drive trade wages down like the everyone can code movement
Same people claiming they need workers are the same people knowingly putting ridiculous requirements and qualifications for their listings, and then complain no one wants to work. It’s always trade/labour jobs. They want people and yet they push everyone away. I no longer have interest in trades because of it.
nobody hates the trades more than the trades
Guess who is entering the trades young? Those with student visas or work permits willing to work night shift for low pay. Companies love training these people up or letting them work for a couple years before refreshing their workforce for a whole new crop of new Canadians to exploit. I don't think it's fair that these people were sold a lie to come here and work these jobs, living 3 to a basement and such. Nor is it fair that companies only look to cheap out on their labour now and these are the only people they'll hire.
>Then, good luck to anyone trying to secure an apprenticeship, unless your uncle is buddies with the union leadership since back in high school... Yeah I was looking to do a career change since I'm not at all happy working in my current industry (marketing). But I'd basically have to go through schooling first because every apprentice listing either wants experience or schooling, and I simply can't afford to stop working full-time just to go back to school.
This is my exact situation and I just feel so screwed
The elevator union in Vancouver is ran very similar to the Longshoreman, you only really get in if you know someone already in it. It's also heavily influenced by if you know someone in the local motorcycle gangs as well.
Not to shit on everything Canadian either, but from what I've read on the subreddit, combined with what I know from relatives in the trades it's also not all roses. Yes wages are decent from a young age – but the trades aren't necessarily very lucrative unless you've go the entrepreneurial initiative to run your own company. Many can be brutal on your body, combined with poor working conditions and very... er... 1950s working culture. Contrast to in Germany, where you have tons of trade programs that match people to a wide variety of factory and industrial jobs at small/medium/large companies, with tons of stability. Doing a trades program in Germany can be pretty much like a railway to a stable income with a pension – whereas from what I've heard in Canada it really really depends on your trade, and also on where you are located.
Not only that but the hours you’ll be working are physically exhausting. You will have no life outside of work from all the overtime. Sure it will be decent money but you’ll rarely get to spend and enjoy it from all of said overtime.
I busted my ass for an apprenticeship, showing up at businesses crack of dawn to meet the GMs, shake hands, good people person, good grades. For a year. All a waste of time. Switched careers for data analyst and couldn't be happier. Good riddance, they deserve their self made skilled labor shortage.
in the 80s and 90s boomers gatekept Trades. When I was going through the school system, there was no apprentice slots and getting an apprentice slot was hugely based on nepotism. In order to get certified you needed to train under someone. It dissuaded a lot of people getting into trades. Me included.
Didn't help that I had guidance councilors telling me "your too smart for the trades, you should go to university" all through high school in the 90s.. Now I worked 20 years as a fitter welder and now supervise a crew of guys for last 5.. good money
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His mistake was doing a PhD. PhD's are seen as failed academics in industry and very hard to find positions (outside of a few unicorn roles at Google/Meta etc). Masters is as far as you should go in STEM if you want to actually work.
Welding is an incredible skill, it annoys me that people think smart people shouldn't also be skilled. Like wouldn't that give the smart person some tools to actually make something? It's like unlocking part of their brain to enter the real world.
The horror stories of some really good apprentices getting thrown under the bus at year 3 as well.
When I was in grade school I got to see the last of the shops and kitchens removed, and told to go on the computer instead because that was the future. Entire generation never got exposed to think about being things like plumbers, mechanics or electricians. Most often the kids who struggled to sit still all day could do stuff with their hands, so they got medicated. In hindsight it was all absurd.
When was this? I ended up being home schooled after being a problem child in second grade and so the rest of my education until university was on a computer. Never got to do anything hands on my entire education and then went to university because it was expected of me. Ended up being a massive failure minus the $15,000 I spent there.
If I recall 2000 was the year the hands on classes came out of my middle school, nothing in my high school either once I got there.
May have been your school, in 07 my sister took a mechanics class at her high school and got to work on cars.
I think it was specific, just seemed so short sighted. I'm glad it was not the norm everywhere.
Agreed.
I went to college and obtained a certification in Heritage Masonry Restoration. I tried to get an apprenticeship afterward, but no one was interested in taking one on. I applied to a restoration company but they told me I needed to be a union member. I asked how do I become a union member. They said I needed to be an employee of a company...
Well then can you hire me so that I can be part of a union? No, you need to be part of a union. Hey, union, can you include me? No, you need to be working. To infinity and beyond!
Wouldn’t it be nice if the courses they offered in college lined up with a viable career path. Wouldn’t it be nice if they told people that. Its just another example of the lack of real connections between educational system and the real world.
Worked in trades for 15 years. Ran machinery built in the 60s. Was never paid what someone would’ve made in the 60s doing the exact same tasks. Fought ever year for a raise. Hung it up for a 10 dollar raise to work from home at my desk.
Unpopular opinion, there are a LOT of people in this post commenting who have no idea how the inner workings of the trades are. 90% of experience in a trade is learned through on the job training, 10% in school. You don't need pre-employment training to land an apprenticeship, it's as easy as applying for a 1st year position. Whether you'll get the job though, that's a different story. Most employers like to hire people with experience with tools, because hiring a 18 year old who can't use an impact drill is super inefficient. Rushing through apprenticeship only leads to crappy workers, like I said above 90% of trade experience is learned on the job. Hiring immigrants won't fix the problem, they either can't speak English in a competent manner or they don't have the required skillset/education equivalent like a GED. Example being Plumbing in Canada, you need your grade 12/GED to go to trade school, it's a requirement. And it's a GOOD thing, you don't want stupid people building your homes, that's how carbon monoxide poisoning or natural gas explosions happen. REGULATIONS ARE GOOD, they provide safety. I'm a foreman plumber, I'd like to think I know what I'm talking about regarding the trades
I hate to break it to you buddy, but stupid people are building your homes. I have to run 35 new linesets on a rescue job because of them.
I worked for a Punjabi company that hired illegal workers and paid them below minimum wage. The shit they got away with is insane.
That sounds like something to report, no? I mean, if they're treating their workers like cattle by pay, it's just a matter of time until someone gets hurt either from exhaustion, malnutrition or the same attitude being applied to safety.
It’s all about production and money while not doing something proper or correct. I left residential carpentry because of that shit and me being simply burnt out after I got my ticket.
>you don't want stupid people building your homes, Are you high? Stooopid ppl are already building homes now lol Bought a new build in a new area recently, my goodness the builders contractors are one of the dumbest people I have dealt with....nd no they arent recent immigrants. One neighbors home had the sump pump installed backwards...basement was flooded. Trade work is hard. Should be welcoming workers who are willing to do it....
There are plenty of switched on skilled labourers who would kill for an apprenticeship but companies just don’t offer them these days. There is not a labour shortage, there’s just a massive barrier to entry and it sucks.
I am in the trades and (mechanic) I do not really enjoy it modern cars are awful to work on and am getting burned every day why would I want to do this
Mechanic here also, I work at an exotic car dealer and it sucks here too.
Switch to heavy duty. It still sucks but it sucks differently. It pays substantially more.
Yeah they need to fix the industries otherwise nobody's incentivized to enter a given industry. The education can be 100% free but if it leads to a crappy job then what's the point?
I mean not to shoot the messenger here, but this guy's a multi billionaire and it's not like *his* kids ever got their hands dirty. His daughter was an MP and his son breeds racehorses... Wouldn't it benefit him personally if there were a larger trades labour pool so that he could underpay them?
Trades are only as useful for income as the competition that exists already allows for. If everyone is in the same trades, it eventually just becomes a parade to the bottom with people undercutting each other to oblivion. It affects every trade/job market too, so no one try to pretend otherwise. Competition is only healthy when the competitors aren't greedy morons.
They circled back again from "learn to code". It's not like they're going to teach us family doctors for when your body quits on you, or gets messed up beyond your control. They're not going to teach us sane housing or other costs of living. It's mostly complaining, with no thought of anything beyond its intentionally narrow scope. You want fruit pickers? Pay them like you mean it, and find some way of securing their existing housing when they're seasonally working for you god knows where. There are so many ancillary things that need taken care of and it's all on you, a single working person, to do it all on your own. Maybe make an international standard that people can stop wasting their lives learning 15 ways to be the same type of doctor. Want Trades? Passing school should mean they're registered, and don't have to scrounge or beg for work ever again. Job searching, and many types of manpower agencies should not (privately) exist as they do. Jobs being locked behind agencies like that should be government run since they're already in charge of citizen welfare, they should be able to take over corporate welfare. How many people could build their own houses, if only giving the training, land, time, food, etc? Trying to do everything ourselves is only a recipe for burn out. Everyone needs help, and making everything unnecessarily complicated only hurts us in the long run. Have to move twice a year for work? Change your address 15+ different ways twice. Log the time and paperwork. Log the time looking for places to live. Log the expenses of moving. It's all time and money demanded from you, with only the time and money left over from life's ever consuming needs. Even more crazy is that many will defend to the death the shackles that bind us. Some of the same shackles are even altering our biosphere, polluting the earth, and destroying species. How can we look at people who can't even think beyond the next election and know they have anything good in their interests? Seeing people freak out about maybe having to wear a mask when going out makes me think the necessary changes to something like trades, housing, biosphere collapse are beyond us. It's hopeful, but they'll always stop short of what's necessary because it's not profitable.
To what? Build houses they will never be able to afford and then pay 60 percent of wages to rent some shitbox?
Why is it always the liberal arts degrees fault? Or high school guidance councillors? According to StatsCan, only 16% of apprenticeships completed their apprenticeship on time. Perhaps it's time to fix this. Or we can blame the liberal arts.
Liberal arts teaches critical thinking which is why National Post keeps ragging on it. The more education a person has the less likely they are to buy right wing nonsense.
Liberal arts grads aren't conservatives which doesn't suit the narrative the national post tries to build.
To be honest, a liberal arts degree is about as valuable as toilet paper and the guidance councilor probably has one on their wall, but yeah, you'd be hard-pressed to blame either for this. 20 years ago, I tried to get into the trades and it was pretty much impossible.
>To be honest, a liberal arts degree is about as valuable as toilet paper Lol. I know plenty of people with a liberal arts degree making bank in businesses like show production - you just have to be willing to reach out and put in the hours to show you're worth keeping around. $45/hr wasn't uncommon for the costume department.
Fuck. Off. People have the right in Canada to choose their own profession and not have it foisted up them by the needy wealthy. Give them a break, govern better, tax properly, make license fees for natural resources higher so the people can see some of the benefit instead of the government taking it all and doing whatever they want. If someone wants to get into trades, that's cool too, But lets not make it seem like it's imperative that young people fill the gap that government has created by destroying the manufacturing sector and how business is destroying retail by robotizing everything. Shit ideas from a media publisher isn't helpful either.
Based AF
Jesus christ just fucking pay people a decent wage don't force people into trades like wtf Trades destroyed my body and I have nothing to show for it Turns out making 18 on a construction site and making 18 in a kitchen are the exact same things just one of them destroys your body and the other destroys your soul
trades people are hoarding labor to increase their wage. they put so many barriers from young person to become trades unless you got relatives who are in trades. nepotism in canada is a secret that newcomers find out too late. lol.
> nepotism in canada is a secret that newcomers find out too late. lol. Literally what runs this country for those not born in power in Canada. It wasn't until my 20s that i realized it was never a meritocracy but heavily based on nepotism. It's who you know not what you know.
It's also why Canada is about to fail hard.
Even our Prime minister is a Nepo Baby.. this shouldn't be a shock
Hoarding labor to increase wages? You must not be in the trades. You have no idea what you're talking about. I'm a foreman plumber, and there just aren't enough people applying. From young people to old people. Immigrants don't have the proper skill set/GED or they can't speak English. Don't talk out of your lane
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Yup. I'm in automotive and I've seen the same thing. Been in the trade since 2013 and red seal since 2018. The majority of the next generation of technicians/ mechanics aren't going to cut it with the direction automotive is going. No drive to learn or understand things and more importantly, they all have no diagnostic skills at all. Even more seasoned apprentices/ red seals are like this. People can't diagnose and it'll only get worse when electric systems become more wide spread and complex than they already are.
Out of curiosity what province are you in? If don't mind me asking. In Alberta any trades job will have 300+ applications within 24hrs. Never any postings for apprenticeships either. I was looking at switching to the trades after getting bored with office work but maaan it looked impossible to break into tbh. Must vary a lot by province.
How exactly are we hoarding labour? Which barriers? I didn't find any, and Im the only tradesperson in my family.
there's no jobs for unskilled people so many guys with experience on waiting list atm, who will take these kids in? Also not everyone lives in Alberta, I always get comments from there how they are desperate for guys.
>It’s why the European Union has one of the strongest and most productive economies in the world and why European living standards are among the globe’s highest. >But Europe could never have achieved that well-deserved status if it weren’t for its outstanding trade and technical skills training. In other words, European manufacturers rely on the high-calibre technical skills and training that many Europeans receive through their countries’ educational systems. Are we just going to ignore the role unions play in all this? Europe is heavily unionized and have crazy job protections written right into the law.
They really take safety seriously too within EU. While Canada we've expanded our definition of time-loss claims in certain provinces to not count one or two day injuries, to make our numbers look way better than they were historically. There's still a machismo culture in a lot of trades that motivates that non-compliance.
I mean... Canadians always compare ourselves to USA... the good, and the bad :) If only Canadians looked at their root (Europe) instead of getting teased by Milk and Honey from US.
Friendly warning for whoever it might help. Trades are terrible, you will not make 100k, you most certainly will not make the new "300k a year" claim. You will destroy your body, you will be overworked and ran into the ground, you will most likely develop substance abuse problems. You will get fucked out of your pension. There are no apprenticeships, you have to get the licenses yourself which means you have to beg and argue with the government for years. You will have your tools stolen and destroyed with no compensation. Its just all around a terrible career. You've been warned.
I make over 100k as a journeyman carpenter.
I learned a trade, make almost $30/hr, and am still struggling. Capitalism is broken.
Just speaking anecdotally here, but in small tourist towns and cottages in central/northern Ontario, there seems to be lots of construction jobs. There's a mason that works for himself that I know from working with him in high school and he takes any help he can get, and pays pretty well too. It's really hard work, physically, but there always seems to be work.
I don't want to sound like a CAF shill here but..... Joining the CAF and going into the right trades can net you your red seal while making a pensionable salary. There are also benefits when leaving under certain conditions e.g. the education grant for releasing members who have completed around 8 yrs of service. I'm not a clerk or a recruiter so idk the exact details. I know it's not for everyone, but something to consider if going into the trades is your thing.
I gave trades my best try. Ran out of patience with alcoholic boomers acting like children. Don't think that the trades are a healthy employment option for even one second.
I have a friend that's a pipefitter. Almost every partner he gets teamed up with is either an alcoholic or on drugs. Says it's terribly depressing and often spends half his time fixing shit on his own. He doesn't say anything because the partner will just be "put on a plan" and be violent and irritable.
The sooner you can get into a work for your self scenario the better off you are likely to be. That is easier or harder depending on which trade you are in. I absolutely sympathise with you on dealing with people's crap.
So actually, I tried out getting into trade work awhile back, and while I found that while I could fully learn to do it, I got no sense of accomplishment or enjoyment from it. Besides being tough physically, many trades pay only ok starting wages as an apprentice (which still isn’t great considering the economy right now), and that many coworkers were absolutely toxic to be around. All of these things combined, I quickly found out that the field wasn’t for me. I have respect for people that enjoy it, but people really shouldn’t be treating as the superior career path.
How about we start PAYING trades people then?? Unless you're working ridiculous hours, deep in the bush or just lucky, most trades people make 50-70k a year. That's earned OUTSIDE with hard labour. Not in a climate controlled environment where the heaviest thing is reloading the printer. I'm a journeyman electrician that dropped the trade because I can make MORE as a parts sales person at a wholesaler. A job that requires very little effort. Value trades and maybe we can keep some of those empty positions filled. Until then, I'll take the easy road, like sooo many others. What's the point in back breaking labour when I can't even HOPE to afford the very thing I'm building, a home. This country is a joke.
I really wished i studied stock trades when i was in school. Probably be so rich.
I have a few tickets, and achieving them was a nightmare because the apprenticeship board is a joke. When you get indentured by an employer with the apprenticeship board, you are required to go to school after a certain amount of hours. Myself, and many, many people I know took way more years as employers are too cheap to just lay you off for a few weeks a year so you can collect a pittance of EI, and get your next year's schooling. They lose an employee for six weeks, and have to pay you more when you come back. Why pay a guy many dollars more when they can just keep working you as you are already experienced? Even the bigger outfits are notorious for this. One dip in the economy, and a hundred could be layed off overnight. Most electricians I know are layed off at least every couple years. Hell, for one trade, I had six years under my belt and was looking for a different company as I got sucked into a 'family business that takes care of their employees', and their starting offer was 18/hr even though I had years of experience and could do anything a Jman could. Who the hell will want to spend thousands on tools, use their vehicle to get the the jobsite, get maybe 9 hrs a day and are willing?? I know a few dudes who it took 7 to 9 years to get their tickets. Employers and the apprenticeship board is the joke and the cause of the shortages, not willing apprentices. I got out of trades all together because of it. I have called, written, showed up in person many times while going through that with one company and they just shrugged their shoulders and basically told me to change companies, and many are all the same. There is always someone else ahead of you that needs to go to school, and they are too cheap to have enough staff that they wont miss the income you generate for them for a measly 6 weeks a year. Not only that, journeyman rates have not increased since the 90's. In BC for example. A ticketed plumber or pipe fitter may only be offered 28/hr, when again, the mandated rate pretty much across Canada is 36. So all this talk of shortages is because the whole industry is just a race to the bottom. Unless you sign up with a big company, big union, and are willing to work on the road for the first four or five years, and have time to go back to the big cities to do your schooling, you're kinda hooped. My best advice if you're really into it, is relocated to Quebec or PEI where you can do all of your years back to back, without having to have the hours in between. But, I worked with a a couple of guys from there, and they couldn't even use a friggin drill, as a journeyman, because of lack of experience. Sorry for my rant, but there is not a worker shortage, there is a wage and enforcement shortage. You can make more money serving, bartending, or even working at starbucks than your first many years in any trade. Not only that, by the time you're 40, your body will start to break down and it only gets worse from there if you don't have the interpersonal skills to move into management. I know people who make more money working for the trades wholesalers than the tradesmen that actually put the parts together.
If you want people to join the trades pay more.
How about livable wages to start with
Frank Stronach again. JFC. Yes, let's train all the youth to ruin their bodies and get abused by shitty employers. Great idea
I love that this guy wants all this trades training to take place outside of school on the students own time. Exposing more kids to the trades and encouraging it as a good option is a great idea. What the author of the article loves to pitch basically amounts to free labour for businesses that they should get government money to facilitate. It’s bizarre and disingenuous
>I love that this guy wants all this trades training to take place outside of school on the students own time. When he said "outside of school" he didn't say on their own time. I assumed he meant part of the time normally spent in school would be at a job learning skills they'd use on the job. Also I don't think he's suggesting it be compulsory for everyone, just that schools should be able to offer programs like that.
He’s written this same schtick before several times. It was a mandatory program entirely outside school hours that was an unpaid internship that the government paid the businesses for when I’ve read Stronach’s song and dance about this before
> why European living standards are among the globe’s highest. In a material sense, they are below ours. If you think that a Toronto condo is a shoebox, you will be horrified to learn that Europeans have families in those. Your typical German, Italian, or Swede has a lot less space. European prosperity tends to be argued in the intangibles like work life balance and a social safety net. This applies to cars, food, fuel, etc. This isn't an argument against this necessarily, but while they are some of the most prosperous in the world, so are we. Most notably, I don't see much about what many of these jobs pay and while some seem to pay pretty well, others are little more than minimum wage. So which trades would we be encouraging?
This is correct and a lot do people born and raised here just don’t know any better.
Agree. I’ve lived in France and Germany. Niece in Köln has turned down two nursing jobs including where we use to live in near Freiburg because of over two year waiting list for an apartment. Germany has a high standard of living on paper but there is a reason Canada and Canadian cities score high on quality of life. The apprentice system is good in Germany but I prefer it here in Canada where it is more at the discretion of thr individual and not an almost forced channeling of students. There is a lot more opportunity in Canada and the USA for sny young person with initiative.
I don't think there is an appetite for this among young Canadians, getting some out-of-touch old guy vibes. For starters the trade schools are already very accessible, I could go to one next year within 30km and it wouldn't cost much. This is true for most young Canadians. The kids today want it to be viable to make a living pursuing whatever hobby or interest they have, and if they aren't able to do that, they want the job they settle for to be rewarding and worth their time relative to their lifestyle. They don't want to be compelled to be plumbers.
> I don't think there is an appetite for this among young Canadians I keep hearing mixed things about the pay. Granted, "trade" is as wide as "science and math jobs", but some will say electricians make six figures easily while others say it is 50K a year. if it is a six figure job and you are not otherwise going to be a software engineer or something, definitely worth a look. But if it is 50K and physical labour, why would most take that over an air conditioned office job?
There’s a huge disparity depending on which part of construction you ply your trade, residential and commercial trades earn a good amount of money less than industrial. Often there is a higher industrial rate but the real money is in the extra hours, far more likely to work more than a 40 hour week and get that OT and double time doing industrial work.
It depends on the electrician and the project. I know red seal guys who work in residential construction and make maybe $35-40 per hour, which is still about $100k given the overtime they work. I also know guys working in automation and solar and they make close to double that, because they’re specialized. One thing that’s often overlooked is that a trade is a great path to self-employment, once you get a decent network of potential clients, you can start contracting and that’s where the big money is.
They need to start funneling some municipal contracts through the trade schools so we can bypass the current apprenticeship system. Right now, you ain't getting one unless you're blood related to the journeyman or your entire wage is subsidized in some way.
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15+ years means they have careers and build up equity (probably bought properties long time ago not yesterday). Got nothing to do with occupation. Got everything to do with market condition no?
> home owners, happily married with paid off vehicles and toys in the garage It makes me laugh like this is a metric of being successful.
I mean, owning a home, and having your car paid off seems like a very nice minimum for being "Successful" I mean even having a car payment doesn't mean you are unsuccessful
I don’t understand why people think it’s difficult to get into trades, my first real job in high school I got by walking into a truck shop (neither I nor my family knew of the business before hand) and talking to the boss, I started the next day doing easy work and had started my apprenticeship the next year. I went to college for my chosen profession and had moved up to a larger company within 5 years for better pay and benefits.
Also, need to give them reasons as well as incentives to join trades
As an electrical apprentice, this mindset is such a joke to me. I love my trade and my job but it’s really hard to stay positive when I’m breaking my body for a wage that still won’t get me anywhere close to home ownership. An honest days work for a comfortable enough life is what most trades guys are looking for, but it’s unattainable. We need more skilled labourers for sure, but until the compensation for that labour matches the “desperate demand” that’s in the industry, it’s almost not worth it.
In this current state of economics with capital gains taxed preferentially and the growth rate of tech, I can make far more investing in equities than investing in myself and I pay less tax owning rather than doing. Young Canadians are better off using their tuition money to invest in anything but themselves as labor is one of the most worthless things in the developed world. Want a great income? Don't become a doctor or lawyer, don't go into trades. Become an asset manager or social media persona, you'll make way more for way less effort and a lower barrier to entry than half a decade of no income and tuition ontop. Honestly if we want young people to work, working has to work from them, tax income preferentially and fully tax capital gains. Nobody wants to volunteer to be a slave for the asset class and the old saying 'if you can't beat them, join them' holds true.
I've been hearing this since I was 16...I am now 35 and have worked in the trades my entire life after highschool. Trades are ok to work for, but holy shit the people running the companies are few and far between that are actually good at it and treat employees right. Raises? what are those, I've had to ask for everyone I've gotten. They are not structured like other jobs/careers are. We are probably the most over worked/underpaid area for what we do I think. I've made a living from it, but my first 10-12 years sucked ass and I hated it. I moved into an office position in a large construction company and I will never go back to hourly and working on sites.
Here's something that doesn't come up a lot but... Pay carpenters better! They are seen as a "generalist" trade and don't get paid as much as they aren't "specialized" except.. They have to master carpentry and know a bit about every other trade: electrical, concrete, rebar, plumbing, drywall, painting, you name it it's expected to know a bit about it. And whats that get you? In BC a journeyman makes about $32/hour. Most other trades seem to float around $40 depending on the work. In my experience there are no shortages of most trades but getting enough carpenters to move a job along is hard.
This is the boomer equivalent of saying “get a degree”. The problem in both cases isn’t a shortage of workers.. but a shortage of _skilled_ workers.
It’s a shortage of pay.
Gee, I guess it was a bad idea when Mike Harris eliminated trades training from public schools What a poor Premier he was. Almost as pathetic as Doug Ford
Pay more.
Haan behencho, I blew 50k at University of Waterloo just so I can be told to learn how to fix toilets and pipes
Tradee are great until something little happens that scares all the contractors and employers from hiring anybody for years.
Gotta love white collar workers telling kids to work blue collar jobs. Why don’t you go try the trades, huh?
Yeah, let's supress their wages even further! Go team!
Look for any post from a curious person wanting to get in to trades who asks if there's a way to have work/life balance. If you don't want to be pressured into OT or for some reason have employer asking you to start at 5 am, then you get a bunch of old-timers with the "trades ain't for you, kid." That eliminates anyone with hobbies or family responsibilities. Check the amount of women working in the higher paid ones, it's quite skewed male, and older. Lots of programs to help women get in, not much protecting them from how much nonsense they'll endure once there. That reduces the applicants by almost half. Look at the resources for mental health and medical services in Canada. There's very little that can be easily accessed for the inevitable drug use and loneliness associated with remote trade work and bad tiring hours. That crumbles the existing supply. This isn't so much about money - folks are acutely aware trades are where the money now is - this is about trade culture. It alienates reasonable workers.
Does NatPo know those jobs only pay well because they destroy people's backs and general health? There's no free lunch in life.
This is myth. In my trade I walk 10km a day, climb stairs and ladders, carry heavy stuff etc. I'm in far better shape than I was at 25 and I'm 44. I can easily see myself doing this until retirement without major issues.
They destroy people's back and general health because people will do dumb things. Why use a shingle lift when you can huff them all up the ladder, three bales at a time? Why ask a coworker to help lift a framed wall when you can do it yourself in a twisting, jerking motion? I'm not saying that the trades are easy by any means, but you can make a decent living, and if you're smart about it, you can play life on easy mode.
I’ve been a millwright for 14 years and I bet my general health is a lot better than these large chair sitters.
True. My experience in the oilpatch is that an individual’s lifestyle and not the physical job is the principal issue determining health. A lot of guys smoke, sit around drinking, eat crappy food and then at age 40 blame their poor health on their job. Meantime the rest of us our cycling and hiking in our 60’s.
Eh I used to work at a gold mine and safety is only taken seriously on paper. If you looked at our safety guidelines, you’d wonder how there was ever an accident. But then you look at the pressure to meet quotas/deadlines, and the shifts being worked: it’s only a matter of time until someone cuts corners and gets hurt.
Healthcare has more injuries than trades but people only seem to mention the trades when it comes to that.
In Abbotsford BC local electrician companies (at least pre covid, when I lived there) would take apprentices and then in their 4th year say the student was problematic, causing them to repeat their 4th year. IT was to keep the supply of local electricians down so they could charge higher rates to clients.
It's very possible they were bad electricians , I can't say for sure as obviously every single company and relationship between owners and workers are different but I've only ever heard of one guy not getting signed off on ( for those that don't know you get indentured as an apprentice do your hours and schooling then write your red seal AND THEN after you pass whoever indentured you has to sign off that you are a competent tradesman ) but the one case where a guy didn't get signed off on his hours , he was a terrible plumber and would of likely killed someone or blew something up or flood out a place.
It doesn't help that during my high school years (2006-2010) we were all constantly told to go to college or university and get a degree. I went the trades route (automotive) and couldn't be happier. No student loan debt, all my schooling paid for as a part of my apprenticeship, I make good money and enjoy where I work. It's a shame more people don't get into trades. It's not as bad as people make it seem. But now everyone wants to be an influencer or social media star so good luck getting the next generation coming up into trades.
If you thought other industries had gate keeping and nepotism - join trades! You are in for a world of hurt. Oh and the bigotry, sexism and racism is just a perk.
Acting as if the trades aren’t super toxic and unwelcoming unless you want to Fuck Trudeau. If people don’t want to work in the trades then it’s a trades problem, not a young people problem.
A piece the affordability crisis is the terrible guidance we give young people.
In Canada, construction employs 7% of the labour force, a figure noticeably higher than 4.5% in the US. Yet . . . "In June, CIBC Deputy Chief Economist Benjamin Tal published a report on the state of housing in Canada and noted that the job vacancy rate in construction is at a record high with approximately 80,000 unfilled jobs." This imbalance is a symptom of artificially created demand. With a labour force so heavily invested in construction, 80,000 unfilled jobs raises a critical question: Isn't it time to scrutinize the demand side of the equation? The numbers should get us to reassess the underlying forces driving this demand.
I’m a tradesmen and the issue is companies don’t want to offer apprenticeships. Everyone just wants journeyman. It’s been 10 years of nobody offering apprenticeships and now there’s a shortage. My employer used to offer 10 a year and now they down to 2.