Trades a track to success
Chris Mazur, 23, is a new electrical apprentice with O’Connor Electric. He landed the job three months ago after a long, four-year struggle to find a company that would take him on.
“It’s impossible to get into an electrical company,” he said.
Mazur was applying for positions as an electrical apprentice while working 120 hours a week at three jobs in the restaurant and service industry.
“Whenever I was on break, I would bring by computer to work and use my Internet on my phone and apply for jobs,” he said. “So even on my breaks, I was still working.”
Mazur isn’t alone in his struggle to find work as an apprentice. Nationwide, the biggest challenge is to get employers to sponsor apprentices, who are paid for their time on the job, said Chris Janzen, dean of the faculty of technology and trades at Algonquin College in Ottawa.
“Getting into the system can be daunting,” he said.
Still, the notion of trade schools and colleges being a step below university-level education is fading.
“The college system isn’t what it was 50 years ago,” said Janzen. “There are still some attitude changes needed among high school teachers and guidance counsellors, despite the fact that some students learn differently and are more successful with hands-on learning.”
There are 86,000 electricians in Canada, according to the Statistics Canada’s 2011 National Household Survey, and currently there are more applicants than jobs.
Mazur was finally able to leave his job at Shoppers Drug Mart for greener pastures in the trades three months ago, when he landed a position as an apprentice.
The average starting wage for an electrical apprentice is $15 an hour, a wage that rises to about $40 an hour once they become a licensed journeyman through the Ontario College of Trades — a process that includes the completion of 9,000 work hours, including trade school sessions.
Mazur has always worked hard, and now as a 23-year-old electrical apprentice, he’s saved up enough money to buy his own car and plans to buy a house in the next year — something many millennials can only dream about.
The motivation for his career path? Do whatever helps you retire faster.
His definition of the Canadian dream is more akin to that of his parents than of his contract-hopping, part-time working peers. The financial stability that comes along with being an electrician affords him the luxury to think about a future and feel confident about having a job for life.