Australia has an apprenticeship problem. While many young people around the world are embracing trades and vocational jobs, the opposite is happening here.
In the US, the number of apprentices has risen by 80 per cent over the past decade, driven by a bleak graduate job market where a four-year university education no longer promises the same pathways to stable work as that of gaining experience on the job.
In China, the number of students taking gaokao, the university entrance exam, has declined steadily over the past few years, with people instead turning to vocational training to fast-track their way directly into a job market with a 16 per cent youth unemployment rate.
Itโs a different story in Australia. According to the National Centre of Vocational Education Research, in the 12 months leading up to June 2025, trade apprenticeships fell by 7.3 per cent, and non-trade apprenticeships by 20.2 per cent.
Although areas like construction, hairdressing, manufacturing, energy and automation โ to name just a few of the industries with established apprenticeship programs โ are crying out for more workers, thereโs a distinct lack of uptake. The reasons for this are multi-layered, but it involves both supply and demand.
On the supply side, itโs time-consuming and expensive to train new workers. The government knows this, and last year introduced the Key Apprenticeship Program to give employers some assistance to offset the costs in their priority areas, like construction and clean energy.
Apprenticeships are low pay and hard work, requiring exhausting physical work at times.
More than 25,000 people have now started an apprenticeship in housing construction in just 10 months, however adjustments to this funding in the latest budget might reign some of these numbers in.
As youth unemployment has had a gradual but steady climb over four years to 11.1 per cent, and fears around AIโs adoption and its impact on the job market increase alongside it, youโd think that vocational training would be at its most appealing.
Which brings us to the second โ and most important โ problem: many young people simply donโt want to do it. Apprenticeships are low pay and hard work, often requiring exhausting physical work at times.
Young Australians are not driving the demand industries such as construction need, and have so far turned away from it. Part of the problem lies with all of us, and the way we talk about, encourage and educate the next generation of the workforce. University and graduate white-collar roles are often held in higher esteem, and we can tend to look down on trades as being second-tier.
Thatโs where the change has to begin, with how we frame it. We need to stop treating apprenticeships as the back-up plan, and start thinking of it as a way to future-proof a fruitful career. It will be a long time before AI and robotics will come meaningfully for manual labour, so thereโs a safety net in trades that doesnโt exist in many other industries.
Some countries, like Germany, have an established dual education system that combines practical workplace training with theoretical education. Known as ausbildung, it is so established and successful that over 60 per cent of Germans start their careers in this alternative system.
The more people that graduate from the program with a nationally recognised and highly valued certificate, the more respected learning a trade becomes, creating a society that prides itself on efficient productivity.
All around the world, young people are hedging their bets on tangible skills they can hold on to in an unpredictable future. If Australia wants to keep up in these critical areas, it starts with changing how we think about apprenticeships.
Tim Duggan is author of Work Backwards: The Revolutionary Method to Work Smarter and Live Better. He writes a regular newsletter at timduggan.substack.com.
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Tim Duggan is the author of Work Backwards, Cult Status and Killer Thinking. He co-founded Junkee Media and writes a monthly newsletter called OUTLET.From our partners
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