The Completion Behaviour of Registered Apprentices: Who Continues, Who Quits, and Who Completes Programs?

The number of registered apprentices in Canada more than doubled between 1995 and 2007, yet successful completion of apprenticeship programs increased by only about one-third as much. Uncovering the factors related to low completion rates is a necessary first step to ensuring that today's skilled labour is replaced in the future. This study utilizes the 2007 National Apprenticeship Survey (NAS) to investigate the completion behaviour of individuals enrolled in apprenticeship programs. These behaviours include continuing, discontinuing (or quitting), and completing programs. The NAS contains detailed demographic information regarding respondents' backgrounds and the characteristics of apprenticeship programs. The results show that program completion is positively related to a variety of demographic characteristics, including being married and having completed at least a high school education prior to beginning an apprenticeship. Males and females have similar completion probabilities. Completion is negatively related to time in the apprenticeship program (beyond the normal program length) and the number of employers during training. Type of technical training and having a journeyperson always present enhance the probability of completion. The regional unemployment rate has little effect on whether an individual completes an apprenticeship program or not. There are also large provincial and trade group differences. This is a revised version of an earlier paper circulated under the same title (Laporte and Mueller 2010). We thank the Canadian Labour Market and Skills Researcher Network (CLSRN) and Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC) for supporting this research. We would also like to thank an anonymous reviewer, Grant Schellenberg, and Pamela White for useful comments as well as participants at the January 2010 HRSDC-CLSRN Apprenticeship Workshop in Vancouver and many colleagues at Statistics Canada and HRSDC.