4. Provincial analysis

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As was the case with the 1992 cohort of registered apprentices, the 1993 cohort of apprentices began their programs during a recession which marked the 1991 to 1995 period. In fact, since the two cohorts shared ten of the eleven years covered by this analysis, one would not expect to find large differences between them with respect to rates of completion or discontinuation.

In the following section, results are presented separately for each jurisdiction. Data definitions are shown in Box 1.

4.1 New Brunswick

Results by gender, age, and trade

In 1993, 921 people started an apprenticeship program in New Brunswick and almost all of them were male (95%). This is about the same as in 1992 with 904 starters and 92% male. All major trade-group programs included mostly male apprentices with the exception of the food and service trade group, where 43% were female. About one third of the new apprentices in 1993 were aged 30 and over when they began their program and another third was aged 20 to 24, which is about the same as for the 1992 starters (Chart 1). The presence of a significant proportion of new registrants aged 30 and over is a characteristic of the apprenticeship learning programs in all jurisdictions. The average age of the apprentices who started an apprenticeship program in 1993 in New Brunswick was 27.7 years old.

Chart 1
Distribution of the 1992 and the 1993 new registered apprentices by age group, New Brunswick

The most common major trade groups in New Brunswick for the 1993 cohort of apprentices were the motor vehicle and heavy equipment group (23%) and the industrial and mechanical group (21%). The motor vehicle and heavy equipment trade group was also the most common in the 1992 cohort. However, in 1993, a higher proportion of apprentices were registered in the industrial and mechanical trades group at the expense of the construction building trades, the metal fabricating trades and the food and service trades groups (Chart 2) . The number of newly registered apprentices in the industrial and mechanical trades posted a 45% increase while the same number in the building and construction trades, in the food and services trades and in the metal fabricating trades posted a 16%, 16% and 21% decrease respectively. Periods of recession tend to have larger relative impact on construction-related trades and that may have played a role in the shift toward the industrial trades. Trades that were most common among the new apprentices of 1993 in New Brunswick were automotive service technician, construction electrician, carpenter and industrial instrument mechanic.

Rates of completion, discontinuation and continuation

Of the 921 apprentices who started an apprenticeship program in 1993 in New Brunswick, 47% had completed after 11 years (Text table 1). Most of those completers (90%) had never interrupted their program before completion and 93% of them had completed in the trade in which they were registered in 1993 (Table A.2.1). Conversely, 50% of the 1993 cohort of apprentices had discontinued at some point without ever completing a program over the 11-year period. Most discontinuers stopped once and never returned to an apprenticeship program, at least in the same jurisdiction. Finally, the other 3% consisted of apprentices who were still registered in a program in 2003 and who had never completed nor interrupted a program since registering in 1993. ⁶ These rates are similar to those found for the 1992 cohort.

Chart 2
Distribution of the 1992 and the 1993 new registered apprentices by major trade group, New Brunswick

Text table 1
Proportion of completers, discontinuers and continuers, 1992 and 1993 cohorts of registered apprentices, New Brunswick

Completions by major trade group ⁷

Completion rates vary by major trade group. For the 1993 cohort, four of the six major trade groups ⁸ showed rates of completion slightly above 50%: the food and services group, the industrial and mechanical group, the electrical, electronics and related group and the metal fabricating group. For these four groups, rates were similar, varying between 51% and 54%. Two groups showed rates below the average of 47%: the motor vehicle and heavy equipment group with a rate of 43% and, more significantly, the building construction group with a rate of just 30% (Chart 3). In comparison with the 1992 cohort, the completion rates of the 1993 cohort by major trade group showed some changes. Completion rates were down by 10 percentage points in three trade groups: industrial and mechanical trades, metal fabricating trades and motor vehicle and heavy equipment trades. In contrast, the completion rate was up by 8 percentage points in the food and service trades. The result of these changes is that rates of completion were more similar across trade groups in the 1993 cohort than they were in the case of the 1992 cohort. The exception was the building-construction trade group that showed a rate of completion that was significantly below the average rate in both cohorts. This is comparable to the situation in other provinces and appears to be a characteristic of that trade group, at least for the cohorts that started in 1992 and 1993.

Chart 3
Completion rates by major trade groups, 1992 and 1993 cohorts of registered apprentices, New Brunswick

Completion by selected trades

The comparison of completion rates between cohorts for specific trades in New Brunswick is based on small numbers. However, we selected a limited list of single trades that had a reasonable number of apprentices in both cohorts (Text table 2). Three out of seven trades showed a notable change in rates and four showed similar rates. The rates were significantly down for the automotive service technicians and the construction electricians. The most significant change was however for plumbers with a rate of completion that went from 56% in the 1992 cohort to 38% in the 1993 cohort.

Text table 2
Completion rates for specific trades, 1992 and 1993 cohorts of registered apprentices, New Brunswick

Within the same cohort, significant differences exist between trades when looking at the proportions of individuals completing an apprenticeship program. For example, in both cohorts, the proportion of completions was three times higher for industrial mechanics millwrights and welders than for the carpenters. Carpenters had the lowest completion rate at 22% for the 1992 cohort and 24% for the 1993 cohort, whereas industrial mechanics millwrights and welders had completion rates at about 65% in both years.

Completion, age and duration of the program

For both the 1992 and the 1993 cohorts in New Brunswick, completion rates did not vary by the age of the apprentices when they began their programs. An exception applies to those who started their program at the age of 40 or more; the average completion rate for this group was 38% compared to the average overall rate of 47%. This finding is different from that observed for Ontario and Alberta where age at the start of an apprenticeship program is related to completion rates. Also, there is no apparent relationship between the nominal duration of the program and the proportion of apprentices who complete the program (Table A.2.2). This was also the case for the 1992 cohort.

Return after discontinuation

Only 11% of the 1993 starters who discontinued an apprenticeship program in New Brunswick eventually returned to a program, either the same program or a different one (Table A.3.1 ⁹). This rate is similar to that found for the 1992 cohort. Among those who eventually returned, about half eventually completed a program.

Timing of completion

Another important indicator of the success of apprenticeship training programs is the amount of time that apprentices actually take to complete a program. The time is dependent in part on the nominal duration or curriculum of the program, since these durations vary.

As in the 1992 cohort study, the proportion of completers who took a time less than or equal to the nominal duration of the program plus one year was calculated. In the 1993 cohort in New Brunswick, the proportion was 63% (Table A.2.1). This proportion is the same as that found for the 1992 cohort. A significantly higher proportion of apprentices completed within that duration in the food and services group (73%) than in the metal fabricating group (59%) and the building construction group (57%). In all three groups, however, the majority of completers completed their programs within the nominal duration of the program plus one year.

In order to see if the completers took more time than the nominal duration to complete their program, the median duration, which is the duration at which half of the completers have completed, was compared with the nominal duration (Table A.2). In a majority of trades, the median duration was higher, which means that more than half of the completers took longer than the nominal duration of the program to complete. Construction electrician apprentices are the ones with the highest proportion not completing within the nominal duration; in fact, half of the completers in that trade took more than seven years to complete whereas the nominal duration was five years.

Considering all apprenticeship programs combined, 77% of completions occurred within 6 years and the majority (55%) completed between 4 and 6 years after the start of the program (Table A.5). These proportions are similar to those for the 1992 cohort.

Status of learning over eleven years

Chart 4 shows the cumulative proportions of continuers, discontinuers and completers by year for the 1993 to 2003 period for New Brunswick. The chart shows the attrition in the size of the continuer group over the years and the corresponding increases in the proportions of discontinuers and completers. Very few apprentices discontinued after the first year. Then, in the following two years, the number of discontinuers grew faster than the number of completers so that, at the end of the third year, the number of discontinuers was twice the number of completers. In the fourth and fifth years, the number of completers increased grew faster so that, at the end of the fifth year, the numbers of completers and discontinuers were equal (at 30% each).

Chart 4
Learning status of the 1993 cohort of registered apprentices over an 11-year period, New Brunswick

The jump in the number of completions between the third and fifth years can be explained in part by the fact that the nominal duration for most programs is between 3 to 5 years. Also, economic conditions had begun to improve by 1996 and 1997. Overall, the median duration for completion for the 1993 cohort in New Brunswick was five years.

4.2 Ontario

Numbers by gender, age and trade

In 1993, 9,023 people were registered in an apprenticeship program in Ontario and the majority were males (85%). That number represented an increase of 8% over the 1992 registrations that numbered 8,342 starters with a slightly higher proportion of males (91%). In fact, the increase in the number of new apprentices, as well as the change in the proportion of males, is explained by a sudden rise in the number of hairdresser/hairstylist apprentices in 1993. This was the result of a consolidation of the apprenticeship program in hairstyling in Ontario that year, with the result that the number of new registrations in that trade rose from 394 in 1992 to 1,084 in 1993. The increase in the number of hairdressers/hairstylists had an impact on the proportion of females among new apprentices in the food and services group overall, raising that proportion from 48% in 1992 to 65% in 1993. The only other group that included a significant proportion of females was the miscellaneous group "other trades," at 12%. The other five major trade groups had almost exclusively male apprentices.

The average age of apprentices who started an apprenticeship program in 1993 in Ontario was 26.7 years old. About 30% of the new apprentices in 1993 were aged 30 or more when they began their program, close to 40% were aged 20 to 24, while those aged less than 20 accounted for 11%. The age composition of the 1993 starters was about the same as that of the 1992 starters (Chart 5). However, the proportion of new apprentices aged 30 or more varied greatly by major trade group; they accounted for 46% of apprentices in the industrial and mechanical trade group compared to about 20% in the motor vehicle and heavy equipment group and the metal fabricating group (Table A.6.1).

Chart 5
Distribution of the 1992 and the 1993 new registered apprentices by age group, Ontario

The most common major trade group in Ontario for the 1993 cohort of apprentices was the motor vehicle and heavy equipment group (29%), followed by the food and services group (19%) and the building construction group (18%) (Chart 6). The industrial and mechanical trades represented only 7% of all apprentices. Compared with the 1992 cohort, there was an increase in the share of the food and services group from 12% to 19%, explained in part by the increase in the number of hairstylists/hairdressers noted above. There was a decrease in the share of the electrical, electronics and related group from 14% to 9% and little change in the shares of the five other major groups. The increase in 1993 in the number of newly registered apprentices in the food and services group was 77%, while the decrease in the electrical, electronics and related group was 30%. In the five other major trade groups, the variation was not as significant, except for the metal fabricating group and the trade group "other" with an increase of 12% and 18% respectively. The most common trade in the 1993 cohort of apprentices in Ontario was automotive service technician, followed by hairstylist, construction electrician and carpenter.

Chart 6
Distribution of the 1992 and the 1993 new registered apprentices by major trade group, Ontario

Completion, discontinuation and continuation proportions

Of the 9,023 apprentices who started in 1993 in Ontario, 50% had completed an apprenticeship trade program 11 years later (Text table 3). Of those completers, 95% had never interrupted their program before completing it and almost all (96%) had completed the trade program in which they were registered in 1993 (Table A.7.1). Conversely, over the 11-year period, 41% had discontinued at some point without ever completing; most of these discontinuers did not return after leaving once. The other 9% include apprentices who were still registered in 2003, but who had not yet completed nor interrupted a program. The proportions of completers, discontinuers and continuers in 2003 were similar to those for the 1992 cohort. The relatively high proportion of continuers after eleven years in an apprenticeship program is a characteristic of Ontario data. ¹⁰

Completion by major trade group

Completion rates vary by major trade group. In the 1993 cohort in Ontario, two major trade groups posted completion rates markedly above average: the industrial and mechanical group with a rate close to 70% and the electrical, electronics and related group with a rate just above 60%. Three groups were around the 50% average: food and services (55%), metal fabricating (55%) and motor vehicle and heavy equipment (51%).

Text table 3
Proportion of completers, discontinuers and continuers, 1992 and 1993 cohorts of registered apprentices, Ontario

Two were significantly below average: the miscellaneous group "other" with a rate just above 30% and the building construction group with a rate just below 30%. For five of the seven trade groups, the completion rates of the 1993 cohorts were similar to the ones of the 1992 cohort. The two groups where the completion rates changed from the 1992 to the 1993 cohort were the industrial and mechanical group (9 percentage points higher) and the food and services group (18 point higher) (Chart 7). In this last case, the increase was due to the hairdresser/hairstylist trade which formed a larger proportion of that major trade group in 1993 and which had a completion rate that increased to 69% for the 1993 cohort from 49% in the 1992 cohort. Notably, as was the case for New Brunswick, the rate of completion for the building construction group was particularly low for both the 1992 and 1993 cohorts.

Chart 7
Completion rates by major trade groups, 1992 and 1993 cohorts of registered apprentices, Ontario

Completion by selected trades

Trades that had at least 100 newly registered apprentices in 1993 were selected in order to compare completion rates for the 1992 and the 1993 cohorts. The next table shows these trades listed in descending order of the rates of completion for the 1993 cohort (Text table 4). Of the 17 selected trades, only two showed rates that were significantly different between the two cohorts: the rate for hairdressers/ hairstylists, as noted previously, rose to 69% from 49% and the rate for industrial electricians rose from 45% to 62%. The hairdresser/hairstylist trade was obviously not composed of the same population in the 1992 and in the 1993 cohorts. The remainder of the trades showed very similar rates of completion for the two cohorts.

Text table 4
Completion rates for specific trades, 1992 and 1993 cohorts of registered apprentices, Ontario

However, within the same cohort, there were large differences across trades. In the 1993 cohort, the top six trades had completion rates of over 60%. The industrial mechanic-millwright trade was in first position, at 71%. Five trades had completion rates below 35%, with landscape gardener last, at 19%. These large differences suggest that completion of an apprenticeship program may depend as much on the trade (for example, job availability, economic environment, seasonal character of the work, compulsory or voluntary trade) as on the characteristics of the apprentice (age, family situation, education, experience and so on). As was the case for New Brunswick, rates of completion for cooks and carpenters were significantly below the average rate, while completion rates for industrial mechanics were higher than the average.

Completion, age and duration of the program

For both cohorts, completion rates in Ontario appear related to the age of the apprentices at the start of their programs — the older the apprentices at the start of their programs, the lower the completion rate (Table A.7) and the higher the discontinuation rate (Table A.8).

The completion rate was 57% for those who started their apprenticeship program at age 15 to 19 and decreased with age to reach 40% for those who started at age 40 or more. This relationship between age at the start of the program and the completion rate was not found for New Brunswick, with the exception of apprentices aged 40 or more for whom completion rates were lower. However, it was found for Alberta.

In contrast, there is no apparent relationship between the duration of the program and completion rates (Table A.7.2). In fact, for Ontario, higher completion rates were found for programs that had a four-year nominal duration. Those programs include trades that usually show higher completion rates such as the industrial and mechanical trades. This suggests that the nominal duration of the program is a less important factor than the trade itself in determining completion rates.

Return after discontinuation

About 15% of the 1993 starters who discontinued an apprenticeship program in Ontario eventually returned to a program, either the same program or a different one (Table A.8.1). This proportion is lower than the 1992 cohort, in which case 23% of discontinuers had later returned. A little more than half of the 1993 cohort who returned eventually completed a program. Some trade groups showed rates of return significantly higher than others: the electrical, electronics and related group (27%) and the motor vehicle and heavy equipment group (20%) had return rates above the average of 15%. Others, however, showed return rates that were significantly lower than the average: food and services (7%) and building construction (8%).

Timing of completion

In the 1993 cohort, 68% of the completers took a time less than or equal to the nominal duration of the program plus one year, which is a proportion slightly higher than for the 1992 cohort at 63% (Table A.7.1). That proportion varied slightly according to the ages of the apprentices at the start of their programs. Notably, while fewer of them completed, older starters were more likely to complete their programs within the nominal duration plus one year.

There were also differences by trade group. Whereas apprentices in the electrical, electronics and related group were less likely to complete within nominal duration plus one year of their programs, apprentices in the industrial and mechanical and in the food and service groups were more likely to do so. In only one major trade group, the "other trades" group, did more than half of completers take longer than the nominal duration plus one year to complete. Those proportions varied also by single trade, varying between 34% and 84% (Text table 5). Proportions of 80% and over completing their program within nominal duration plus one year were found for hairstylists, cooks, moulders and engravers and tool and die makers, whereas proportions of less than 50% were found for construction electricians and motor vehicle body repairers.

When the median duration is compared to the nominal duration of the programs without the addition of one year, many trade programs showed that at least half of the completers did not complete within the nominal program duration (Table A.7). However, this comparison for Ontario is affected by the fact that, in the case of many trades, several different nominal durations were indicated in the 1993 Registered Apprenticeship Information System (RAIS) database.

When all programs are combined for the 1993 cohort in Ontario, 87% of completers completed their programs within 6 years, which is a slightly higher proportion than for the 1992 cohort, at 80% (Table A.10).

Text table 5
Proportion of completers who took nominal duration plus one year to complete, 1993 cohort of registered apprentices, Ontario

Status of learning over eleven years

The cumulative proportions of completers, discontinuers and continuers at each year over the 11-year period for the 1993 cohort of apprentices registered in Ontario are shown in Chart 8. Almost all apprentices continued their programs after the first year. At the end of the second year, the proportions of discontinuers and completers were equal, at 8%. Then, the number of completers grew faster so that, by the end of the fourth year, the proportion of completers was 10 percentage points higher than the proportion of discontinuers; that gap remained about the same until the eleventh year. Most completers had completed by year seven. In fact, the proportion of completers increased by only two percentage points in the last three years of the 11-year study period. The median duration for completion for the 1993 cohort in Ontario was four years.

Chart 8
Learning status of the 1993 cohort of registered apprentices over an 11-year period, Ontario

4.3 Alberta

Numbers by gender, age and trade

In 1993, 5,485 people started an apprenticeship program in Alberta and, as in the cases of New Brunswick and Ontario, the vast majority were males (87%). The total number of apprenticeship starts was up by 13% over the previous year (4,848), but the proportion of males (86%) was the same. The growth in the number of apprentices varied across major trade group with four of the seven major trade groups posting a 13% to 19% increase and three having an increase of less than 10%. Five of the seven major trade groups had almost exclusively male apprentices, while females accounted for 63% of apprentices in the food and services group and for 27% in the miscellaneous "other" group.

The average age of the apprentices who began an apprenticeship program in 1993 in Alberta was 27.7 years old. The age distribution of the newly registered apprentices in 1993 was identical to that found for the 1992 cohort — about 32% were aged 30 or more, 35% were aged 20 to 24 and 11% were less than 20 years old (Chart 9). The proportion of apprentices aged 30 or more was significantly higher in the industrial and mechanical trade group, at 57%, and was lower in the food and services trade group, at 24% (Table A.11.1).

Chart 9
Distribution of the 1992 and the 1993 new registered apprentices by age group, Alberta

As in the case of the 1992 cohort, the most common major trade groups in Alberta for the 1993 cohort of apprentices were the metal fabricating group (22%) and the motor vehicle and heavy equipment group (21%); the industrial and mechanical group was smaller, at 9% (Chart 10). The higher representation of the metal fabricating trades and the heavy equipment trades among new apprentices in Alberta in 1993 reflects the importance of the oil industry in that province. Common trades among apprentices in Alberta in the 1993 cohort were hairstylist, construction electrician, welder, automotive service technician and carpenter.

Chart 10
Distribution of the 1992 and the 1993 new registered apprentices by major trade group, Alberta

Completion, discontinuation and continuation proportions

Among the 5,485 individuals who began an apprenticeship program in Alberta in 1993, 59% had completed an apprenticeship trade program after 11 years (Text table 6). Of these completers, 95% had completed in the trade in which they had registered in 1993 and, as was the case for New Brunswick and Ontario, most of these completers had not interrupted their program before completion (Table A.12.1). Another 41% of the apprentices in the 1993 cohort had discontinued their program at some point without ever completing; the majority of these discontinuers stopped once and never returned to an apprenticeship program up to 2003, at least in Alberta. Finally, there were essentially no cases of apprentices who were continuers in 2003 (registered in an apprenticeship program continuously since 1993 and still registered in 2003). ¹¹ These proportions of completers and discontinuers are the same as those calculated for the 1992 cohort.

Text table 6
Proportion of completers, discontinuers and continuers, 1992 and 1993 cohorts of registered apprentices, Alberta

Completion by major trade group

Five of the seven major trade groups show completion rates slightly above the average of 59% (Chart 11). The highest completion rate was in the industrial and mechanical trades, at 66%. The building construction group posted a lower rate of 42%, with the miscellaneous "other trades" group being lowest, at 34%. These rates are similar to those found for the 1992 cohort.

Chart 11
Completion rates by major trade groups, 1992 and 1993 cohorts of registered apprentices, Alberta

Comparisons across provinces show that the completion rate was also low in the "other trades" group in Ontario, while completion rates in the building construction group were lower than the average in both Ontario and New Brunswick. Similarly, the above-average rate of completion in the industrial and mechanical trade group was also observed in Ontario and New Brunswick.

Completion by selected trades

Completion rates for trades with at least 100 apprentices newly registered in 1993 are shown in Text table 7 (listed in descending order of rates of completion for the 1993 cohort). None of the 14 trades show a significant difference in completion rates compared to the 1992 cohort. Variation in completion rates across trades is not as wide as in the case of Ontario but is nevertheless significant. Four trades show completion rates of over 70% with hairstylists ranking first, at 76% and four show rates between 40% and 50%. Cooks and carpenters had rates of completion below the average, while welders and industrial mechanics millwrights had above-average rates of completion. This is similar to the findings for New Brunswick and Ontario.

Text table 7
Completion rates for specific trades, 1992 and 1993 cohorts of registered apprentices, Alberta

Completion, age and duration of the program

For both cohorts, as was the case for Ontario, completion rates varied with the age of the apprentices at the start of their programs, with higher proportions of younger apprentices completing their programs than older apprentices (Table A.12). The completion rate was 69% for those who started between the ages of 15 to 19 and decreasing with age, reaching 48% for individuals who had started their programs age of 40 or more. Conversely, there was no apparent relationship between the duration of the program and the proportion of apprentices who completed the program (Table A.12.2). The two-year trade programs had the highest rates of completion, at 75%; this group of programs includes apprentices in the hairstyling trade program which had the highest rate of completion of all trade programs. Similar to the results found for New Brunswick and Ontario, completion rates are more closely related to the specific trade selected than to the nominal duration of a program.

Return after discontinuation

In the 1993 cohort in Alberta, 22% of the discontinuers eventually returned to a program. This is the same proportion as in the 1992 cohort and higher than in New Brunswick and Ontario (Table A.13.1). ¹² Of those discontinuers, 41% experienced more than one interruption, and consequently more than one return, and 59% experienced only one temporary interruption. Slightly more than half of those who returned eventually completed a program. Rates of return varied by major trade group and the groups above and below average were the same as for New Brunswick and Ontario. Above-average rates of return were found for the electrical, electronics and related group (28%) and the motor vehicle and equipment group (27%); rates of return were below average in the building construction group (17%) and the food and services group (14%).

Timing of completion

In the 1993 cohort, two thirds of those who completed a program took less or equal to the nominal duration of the program plus one year to complete, but that proportion varied by trade, varying between 30% and 89% (Text table 8). The proportion for hairstylists was exceptionally high, which may be explained in part by the shorter duration of that program. However, in other cases, there was no apparent relationship between the nominal duration of the program and the proportion of completers who completed within the expected duration. For example, even though the program length was four years, three out of four completers in the steamfitter-pipefitter trade completed within the expected duration, compared to only one out of three for the sheet metal trade.

In the majority of trades, the median duration to completion was greater than the nominal duration of the program, which means that a majority of completers took longer than the nominal duration to complete. The difference was often only one year, but there were trades where the difference was two years (motor vehicle body repair trade) or three years as in the case of the sheet metal trade, in which case half of the completers took seven years or more to complete the four-year program.

When all trade programs are included, for the 1993 cohort in Alberta, 87% of completers completed their programs within 6 years (Table A.15); this is the same proportion as for the 1992 cohort.

Text table 8
Proportion of completers who took nominal duration plus one year to complete, 1993 cohort of registered apprentices, Alberta

Status of learning over eleven years

Chart 12 shows the cumulative proportions of completers, discontinuers and continuers over the 11-year period for the 1993 cohort of apprentices in Alberta. Very few discontinued after their first year. In the first four years of the program, the number of discontinuers and completers grew at about the same rate. At the end of the fourth year, the proportions of completers and discontinuers were about equal. The rate of completion rose faster in the fifth and sixth years of the 11-year period so that, by the end of the sixth year, the proportion of completers was about 20 percentage points higher than the proportion of discontinuers. That difference remained the same over the remainder of the period. The median duration for completion in Alberta for the 1993 cohort was five years.

Chart 12
Learning status of the 1993 cohort of registered apprentices over an 11-year period, Alberta