Ottawa to fund paid placements and top-ups for skilled trades apprentices
The $880-million plan includes a $400 weekly top-up for in-class learning and incentives for employers.
OTTAWA · The federal government will spend $880 million on new measures to help apprentices finish their training in skilled trades. Starting in spring 2027, apprentices will get a $400 weekly top-up during their classroom training periods. The plan also brings back a $5,000 completion bonus for Red Seal trades and offers small and medium employers up to $10,000 for each first-year apprentice they hire in a Red Seal trade. Canada needs 1.4 million new trades workers by 2033 to replace retirees and meet project demand, according to federal estimates.
Financial strain is a major hurdle for many apprentices, who earn employment insurance during school stints that is about half their salary. Justin Santos, a traffic signal electrician in Kelowna, B.C., said the classroom periods were a challenge after he got his Red Seal this spring. "I was taking care of my grandmother and myself, I didn’t have a lot to fall back on," Santos said. "A lot of apprentices that I’ve met are 30 and above and are wanting to get into the trades but they’re struggling with it. They can’t afford to go into school for a two-month period."
Sean Strickland, executive director of Canada’s Building Trades Unions, said apprentices often delay their training due to costs. "A lot of apprentices will stretch that out, they’ll defer, they won’t go until they’re financially stable," he said. He called the new federal top-up a "significant lift to help apprentices complete the in-school portion of their training." The average age of apprentices registering for a Red Seal trade was 25 in 2023, and many have financial obligations like mortgages.
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Apprenticeship enrolment reached a record high of more than 101,500 in 2024, Statistics Canada reported. However, only about 47,000 apprentices received certification that year, a completion rate of 19.9 per cent. Nearly half of apprentices had not finished their program by the expected completion date in 2024. The agency said the pandemic may have contributed to this raised rate.
Employers face their own challenges in hiring apprentices, who require supervision and training according to a provincial curriculum. Strickland said it is difficult to place first-year apprentices on job sites because contractors must invest considerable time. He believes the $10,000 employer incentive will help overcome some of these hurdles. Emily Arrowsmith of the Canadian Apprenticeship Forum said surveys show employers sometimes refuse to release apprentices for school or provide insufficient training.
The $5,000 completion bonus will be available retroactively to journeypersons who finished their apprenticeship as of April 2025. Santos said the bonus will cover the roughly $4,000 he spent on necessary tools. Newly certified journeypersons had a median income of just over $56,500 one year after finishing their apprenticeship in 2022, though wages vary by trade. The government's new funding aims to boost completion rates and fill the skilled labour gap.
With files from The Globe and Mail