Kelly Hoey
Executive Director, HIEC, Ontario Career Lab & ApprenticeSearch.com
Canada has made progress in raising awareness of skilled trades careers. The next challenge is helping aspiring apprentices navigate the path to certification.
Canada’s skilled labour shortage is often framed as a recruitment problem.
Employers need workers. Apprenticeships offer paid, hands-on training and long-term career opportunities. Governments are investing in skilled trades to support housing, infrastructure, advanced manufacturing, clean energy, and other nation-building priorities.
The logic seems simple: encourage more people to enter the skilled trades.
And to Canada’s credit, significant progress has been made. Over the past decade, governments, industry associations, employers, educators, and workforce development organizations have invested heavily in raising awareness of skilled trades careers and apprenticeships. More young people are being exposed to career possibilities, and more Canadians are recognizing apprenticeships as valuable pathways to rewarding careers.
Connecting students with career possibilities
In Ontario, for example, the Ontario Career Lab connects students with industry volunteers through structured Career Conversations that help them explore careers and understand how education connects to the world of work.
Following Career Conversations, nearly two-thirds of participating students reported being open to exploring skilled trades careers, while more than three-quarters indicated some likelihood of pursuing further conversations about courses connected to skilled trades pathways. The findings suggest that direct engagement with industry professionals can influence what young people are willing to consider for their future.
Generating interest matters. But interest alone does not create apprentices.
As Canada advances major investments in workforce development and apprenticeship training, the more important question may be what happens after someone decides they want to pursue a skilled trades career.
Canada’s apprenticeship navigation challenge
That question matters because “skilled trades” is not a single career. It’s a broad ecosystem of occupations, employers, training requirements, regional labour-market needs, certification pathways, and support systems designed to help people enter and progress through their careers. Telling someone that the skilled trades are in demand doesn’t tell them which trade is right for them, who’s hiring, how to become registered, or what to do when their first placement ends.
Canada does not simply have an apprenticeship awareness problem. It has an apprenticeship navigation challenge.
For many prospective apprentices, the path is not always clear. They may be interested in becoming an electrician, welder, millwright, carpenter, plumber, or heavy equipment technician, but still not know where to begin. They may need help understanding entry requirements, building a resume, connecting with employers, preparing for interviews, accessing wage supports, or staying employed between projects and training periods.
Supporting individuals through the apprenticeship journey
That navigation support is not a nice-to-have. It can be the difference between someone being interested in a skilled trades career and someone becoming a registered apprentice who successfully completes their training.
This is where organizations such as ApprenticeSearch.com play a critical role. For almost three decades, ApprenticeSearch.com has helped connect aspiring apprentices with employers while supporting individuals through the real, often non-linear journey into and through apprenticeship.
That journey rarely ends with a first job placement.
Effective apprenticeship systems must help people move through multiple transition points: from awareness to occupation selection, from job seeker to candidate, from candidate to employee, from employee to registered apprentice, from apprentice to technical training, and from technical training to completion and certification.
An apprentice working in project-based employment may need to find a new employer when a contract ends. Someone entering technical training may need support understanding available financial assistance or staying connected to employment after school. A candidate who’s eager but unfamiliar with the system may need one-on-one guidance before they’re ready to approach an employer.
Supporting employers to participate in apprenticeship training
Employers need navigation support, too.
Small- and medium-sized businesses are essential to Canada’s apprenticeship system, but many don’t have dedicated HR departments or apprenticeship specialists. Some want to hire and train apprentices but are unsure how registration works, what incentives are available, how to access wage supports, or what responsibilities come with sponsoring an apprentice. Others are looking for guidance on how to recruit effectively and build the workplace supports and culture needed to help apprentices succeed and stay.
If Canada wants more employers to participate in apprenticeship training, employers also need practical, responsive, and ongoing support that makes the process easier to understand and act on.
This is an important point as federal investments in skilled trades move forward. Funding matters. Incentives matter. Training capacity matters. But the impact of those investments depends on whether people and employers can actually access, understand, and use them.
The next phase of workforce development
Canada has invested considerable effort in helping people discover the opportunities available in skilled trades. The next phase of workforce development is helping more Canadians successfully move through those opportunities.
Apprenticeship is one of Canada’s strongest workforce-development tools. But like any pathway, its value depends on whether people can successfully navigate it.
ApprenticeSearch.com’s work over the past three decades demonstrates the value of practical navigation support at every stage of the apprenticeship journey.
Visit ApprenticeSearch.com to learn more.
