Canada’s skilled trades shortage is getting ‘worse and worse,’ expert says

Ralph Cerasuolo, Founder and CEO of Skilled Trades College, joins BNN Bloomberg to discuss the incentives for young people to work in skill trades.

A skilled trades expert says a change in messaging could entice more young people to enter the industry, which is in the midst of a worsening shortage.

“The numbers are staggering,” Ralph Cerasuolo, founder and CEO of Vaughan, Ont.-based Skilled Trades College, told BNN Bloomberg in an interview Tuesday morning.

“Across North America, for every seven tradespeople that leave the space, it’s replaced with one, so it’s getting worse and worse and there’s challenges with that.”

As with many industries in Canada, the bulk of the skilled trades workforce is approaching retirement age, and there aren’t enough young workers to take their place.

Cerasuolo said one of the main issues facing the sector, in addition to broad demographic changes, is a tendency for young people to pursue university degrees over hands-on post-secondary training in the trades through colleges or apprenticeship programs.

“You know, 20 or 30 years ago, the message was to encourage your kids to go to university, so currently, most kids have that option in mind, and 70 per cent of post-secondary choices are university,” he said.

“The message should be changed, and it is changing, thankfully, to (say) that skilled trades are a viable career path, and let’s face it, not everybody’s destined to be a university graduate. Skilled trades are a very important part of our economy and a driving force of everything that we do.”

Government support

Addressing the shortage of skilled labourers in Canada is a priority for the federal government, according to Prime Minister Mark Carney. In the leadup to his election this spring, the Liberal Party released a plan to cover apprenticeship training costs up to $8,000 for those entering the industry.

“The next decades are going to be a great time to be in the skilled trades,” Carney said in a news release in early April. “(U.S.) President Trump’s tariffs are already impacting Canadian industry, but by investing in workers, we will build a much stronger economy.”

That type of support from the federal government is a long time coming, Cerasuolo said.

“It’s great to see that the government’s come forward and they’ve responded to the need. (It’s) a little late, unfortunately, it’s been going on for probably 35 or 40 years where this started to become a problem,” he explained.

“But the good thing is, it’s a hot topic right now and you can see that the government’s ponied up dollars and there’s a lot of awareness being brought forward.”

‘Next generation of millionaires’

Despite the many challenges it’s creating for Canada’s economy, Cerasuolo said the shortage of skilled tradespeople may also provide an opportunity for those young people looking to carve out a career in the industry.

“There’s a new type of idea that the next generation of millionaires are in the skilled trades, because of its ease to get into your own space, and into your own business,” said Cerasuolo.

“The next generation, they’re calling them the toolbelt generation for obvious reasons because they see the opportunity and they see that AI has become a force and is going to replace a lot of jobs.”

And despite the widespread disruption AI is causing across countless industries throughout the world, the technology has no way to replicate the output of a skilled tradesperson – at least not yet, he said.