Anonymised, illustrative composite. An Ontario electrical contractor tried to grow a second crew by adding a second apprentice under its one journeyperson — and found the trade’s ratio rule does not allow it, no matter how capable the journeyperson is.
At a glance
A small Ontario electrical contracting business ran one crew: a single Certificate-of-Qualification-holding journeyperson supervising one registered apprentice. Demand had grown past what one crew could take on, and the firm’s owner wanted a second crew without doubling the most expensive line item on the payroll — a second licensed journeyperson. The apprentice already on staff was capable, reliable, and the owner assumed a second apprentice could simply be added underneath the same supervision, splitting the existing journeyperson’s time across two smaller jobs rather than one larger one.
The plan was to bring on a second apprentice and have the existing journeyperson split time between two job sites, effectively supervising two apprentices at once. Electrician – Construction and Maintenance is one of Ontario’s compulsory trades, which means the work can only be performed by someone holding a valid Certificate of Qualification, a Provisional Certificate, or a Registered Training Agreement — and compulsory trades carry ratio rules on top of that certification requirement.
When the firm registered the second apprentice’s Training Agreement, Skilled Trades Ontario’s own guidance was direct on the point: “trades with ratios must follow a 1:1 journeyperson-to-apprentice ratio,” set out for the affected trades in Ontario Regulation 876/21 under the Building Opportunities in the Skilled Trades Act, 2021. One journeyperson supervising two apprentices is a 1:2 ratio in a trade that is capped at 1:1 — the plan was out of compliance the moment the second apprentice was added, regardless of how experienced the journeyperson was or how well the two crews would have been split geographically.
Skilled Trades Ontario’s guidance is equally direct about what happens next: “if you fall out of compliance with a ratio (e.g., a certified journeyperson leaves your business), you must resolve the issue as soon as possible to remain compliant.” A shop that adds an apprentice past its ratio does not get to keep dispatching that apprentice until it fixes the mismatch — the fix has to come first.
The firm hired a second Certificate-of-Qualification-holding journeyperson rather than trying to make the existing one stretch across two sites. That brought the shop to 2 journeypersons supervising 2 apprentices — a compliant 1:1 ratio — and unlocked exactly what the ratio allows: one additional fully staffed, fully compliant crew. Dispatchable crews went from 1 to 2, and with them, dispatchable field-days on a standard five-day week went from 5 to 10 a week — a direct function of the second compliant crew, not a productivity estimate layered on top of it.
For the underlying rule itself, see what a journeyperson-to-apprentice ratio actually requires, and for the planning side of this decision before it reaches a hiring stage, see planning field capacity around apprentice ratios.
Had the firm proceeded with two apprentices under one journeyperson, it would have been out of ratio compliance from the day the second Training Agreement was registered, with an obligation to resolve it “as soon as possible” rather than on whatever timeline suited the business. The realistic paths from there were the same one the firm eventually took — hire a second journeyperson — or scale the second apprentice back out, which would have meant paying to register, onboard and then de-register an apprentice without ever being able to dispatch them compliantly in between. The firm would also have carried the ratio risk on the ongoing side: Skilled Trades Ontario’s own guidance notes a shop can fall out of compliance the moment “a certified journeyperson leaves your business” even with a ratio that was compliant the day before, which is exactly the exposure a two-apprentice, one-journeyperson shop would have been carrying permanently rather than as a one-time risk.
The tell is a growth plan that adds apprentice headcount without a matching increase in certified journeypersons, in a trade where a ratio applies. Not every trade carries one — check Ontario Regulation 876/21 for the specific trade before assuming a second apprentice is simply a cheaper way to add a second crew. In a ratio trade, the additional journeyperson is not optional overhead on the way to a second crew; it is the thing that makes a second crew legal to dispatch at all.
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