Ontario is short of skilled tradespeople. Badly short. You’d think that with a shortage this severe, anyone who wanted into the trades could walk in and get signed. The numbers say otherwise.
Getting signed as an apprentice is one of the hardest steps in the whole pathway, harder than school, harder than the tools, harder than showing up. So before you spend a year and a tuition cheque on a pre-apprenticeship program, it’s worth knowing what the data actually says about your odds.
What a pre-apprenticeship program can and can’t promise
No college in Ontario will guarantee you an apprenticeship at graduation. They can’t, by law and by common sense. The employer signs you, not the school.
So if there’s no guarantee, what are your real chances? The Ontario Ministry of Colleges and Universities tracks this. The numbers are public. We just have to read them honestly.
The 100-student question
Picture 100 students starting a pre-apprenticeship electrical program in September. How many end up signed as apprentices?
Less than 100, obviously. Three filters knock the number down:
- Some don’t finish the program.
- Some graduate but leave the labour force: back to school, travel, family.
- Some stay in the labour force but end up in jobs unrelated to their trade.
Run the four major construction trades through those three filters using the government’s own data, and the picture gets uncomfortable.
Under 30 percent, across the board
| Program | Chance you get signed |
|---|---|
| Carpentry | 24% |
| Electrical | 20% |
| HVAC (sheet metal, gasfitter) | 23% |
| Plumbing | 26% |
Twenty to twenty-six percent. That’s the range. Out of every 100 students who start one of these programs, roughly three-quarters never make it to a signed apprenticeship.
For every 100 students who start, somewhere between 74 and 80 will not get signed. That’s the system as it stands.
I have some skin in this. My oldest son graduated from an electrical pre-apprentice program a few years back. Four people from his class of 40 got signed. Four. That ten percent was one of the reasons I helped start Trade Smart College: there had to be a better way to run this.
Why the percentage is so low
There’s no single villain here. Some students legitimately find a better path. Some realize the trade isn’t for them once they hold the tools. Those exits are fine, healthy, even.
But strip those out, and you’re still left with a lot of people who wanted in, paid for school, and never got a shot. That’s the part we take issue with. From where we sit, the breakdown points to three structural problems on the pathway:
Student and employer expectations don’t line up. Nobody is matching the supply of apprentices with local demand in any organized way. And employers hesitate to sign apprentices because the cost of taking one on (supervision, paperwork, productivity drag) is real.
Our diploma program is built around those three problems specifically. We don’t promise anyone a job. We get things wrong. But we’re determined to move that 24 percent.
What it means for you
If you’re considering a pre-apprenticeship, ask the school for their numbers. Graduation rate. Sign rate. Where their last cohort ended up. If they can’t tell you, that’s data in itself.
Ontario needs tradespeople. The students are there, the demand is there, and somewhere in the middle the pathway leaks. Come by, ask hard questions, and see how we’re trying to plug those leaks.
The math: C = G × P × F, where C is your chance of being signed, G is the program graduation rate, P is the labour force participation rate, and F is the percentage of labour force participants working in their field or a partially related field. For carpentry: 0.60 × 0.735 × 0.53 = 23.4%. Electrical: 0.64 × 0.71 × 0.44 = 20%. HVAC: 0.72 × 0.39 × 0.82 = 23%. Plumbing: 0.70 × 0.84 × 0.44 = 26%. Source: Ontario Ministry of Colleges and Universities, 2017-18 employment profiles for Carpentry and Renovation Techniques; Electrical Techniques; Plumbing Techniques; and Heating, Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Techniques (all Ontario College Certificate programs). Data: app.tcu.gov.on.ca/eng/labourmarket/employmentprofiles.
