Local company lobbies for lower trades ratios in the north

A Sudbury-based mechanical services company is lobbying the province to create a Northern Ontario exception for the Ontario College of Trades' ratios for apprentices to journeypersons.

Airco Limited, which provides a number of mechanical services for local businesses, including custom ducting and ventilation, has met with Sudbury MPP Glenn Thibeault to lobby for lower ratios in the north.

Claude Bérubé, Airco's estimator and co-ordinator, and a licensed sheet metal worker with 42 years experience, said the problem is most pronounced for his trade.

To hire one sheet metal apprentice Airco, and any other company in Ontario, needs one journeyperson to supervise their work. But to hire a second apprentice they need three more journeypersons, and to hire a third they would need another three journeypersons. 

Bérubé said he has a growing folder of resumes – with 14 job applicants at last count – from prospective apprentices he would like to hire can't because they don't have enough journeypersons on staff.

Airco currently employs 11 sheet metal workers – including three apprentices – but could expand if the ratios were less onerous, Bérubé said.

Dwayne Becker, Airco's account executive, said the issue for Northern Ontario companies is that the region's population is not sufficient to support higher journeyperson to apprentice ratios for some trades. 

“When you get north you don't have 3 million people and the options of so many different trades,” he said.

A lot of prospective apprentices end up leaving the region to find work in more populated parts of the province, or leave the trades altogether, he said. 
The average age for a journeyperson in Sudbury's top 10 compulsory trades – which are required to register with the Ontario College of Trades – is almost 52 years old.

Bérubé is 64 years old, and said he could retire next year if he chooses to. 

Becker said the aging journeyperson workforce compounds the problem. 

“Four, five, six years down the road who is going to replace them?” he said. “If we can't hire an apprentice to get to that stage to become a licensed journeyman to teach the next apprentice, what are we going to do here in the north?”

Like any other company in its field, Airco also has to bid at a competitive price point to get jobs from clients.

A shortage of apprentices makes it difficult to compete on price – because two journeypersons, for instance, would cost the company much more per hour than a journeyperson and apprentice. 

Thibeault said he has brought the issue to his colleague's at Queen's Park, but added any changes to the ratios would take time.

“We're working with it,” he told Sudbury.com. “It's not just making a phone call and saying we need this. There's a whole process to go through and that's what we're doing right now.”