Every few months, another press release lands.
More apprenticeship funding. New incentives. A task force. A framework. An industry roundtable where everyone agrees the problem is serious and someone else is responsible for fixing it.
Meanwhile, one in two RAC apprentices never finishes their training.
Not one in ten. Not the odd dropout. Half.
According to NCVER, 1,630 apprentice refrigeration and air conditioning mechanics started their training in 2019. By 2023, only 785 had completed it – a completion rate of 48.1%, below even the broader trades average of 54.1%.
NCVER’s 2025 outcomes report says 95% of trade apprentices are employed after training. The trade isn’t the problem. Getting there is.
That’s not a pipeline problem. That’s a leaking bucket.
The Finger-Pointing Is Spectacular
Here’s what happens when you get employers, TAFEs and government in the same room on this subject.
Employers say the TAFE system is under-resourced, the curriculum is outdated and there aren’t enough qualified teachers. Which is true. The Powering Skills Organisation’s 2025 Workforce Plan found 79% of training organisations need more educators and 77% say their infrastructure needs to expand – and many employers and training providers say the curriculum is struggling to keep pace with industry change.
The training sector says employers are treating apprentices as cheap labour and not giving them enough structured on-the-job learning to make the qualification worth finishing. Also true.
Government points to the incentives – Priority Hiring payments of up to $5,000 per apprentice, completion bonuses, the proposed $10,000 trades incentive. They’ve done their bit, apparently.
And the apprentices? They leave because they’re on below-award wages for the first couple of years, doing the jobs nobody else wants, with no real sense of where it goes or why they should stick it out.
Everyone in that room has a point. Which is exactly why nothing gets fixed.
It’s the organisational equivalent of a Ricky Gervais cringe scene – everyone can see the problem, nobody wants to own it and the apprentice quietly texts on a Monday morning and doesn’t come back.
What It Actually Costs
The industry talks about the skills shortage constantly. It doesn’t talk nearly enough about the money being poured into a system that loses half its participants before the finish line.
HVACR apprenticeships run approximately four years. When someone walks in year two or three, the employer has already invested in induction, training hours, their ticket-to-work, their uniform and their van seat. The Tafe has put in lecturer time. The government has paid out early-stage incentives.
Then a Monday morning text arrives.
Multiply that across 845 non-completions from a single cohort – the actual number from the 2019 intake and you begin to see why throwing more apprentices into the system isn’t fixing anything.
PSO’s modelling puts the total gap at 42,000 additional energy trades workers needed by 2030. Apprentice numbers would need to rise by 40% – around 22,000 more energy apprentices in training to get close to that target.
We’re not just failing to train enough people. We’re training them halfway and losing them.
What the Businesses That Keep Apprentices Do Differently
The businesses that retain apprentices through to completion aren’t doing anything revolutionary. They’re doing the basic stuff consistently.
They treat the apprenticeship as an investment, not a cheap labour arrangement. The apprentice is on real jobs under genuine supervision – not cleaning the van and handing tools up a ladder for six months.
They talk about where it goes. Concretely. “In year three you’ll start attending pre-starts. In year four you carry your own job list.” Not “yeah look, there’s definitely opportunity here.” That’s not a career path.
They assign a named senior tech as a point of contact. Not an informal “just ask Dave.” Someone who’s actually been briefed on what that role involves.
And they deal with the money properly. Early apprenticeship wages are tough. Everyone knows it and for some, it’s not about commitment. It’s whether they can actually afford to stay.
A $5,000 government incentive will not keep an apprentice who feels invisible. An honest conversation will.
The Bottom Line
A 48.1% completion rate is not an enrolment problem. It’s a retention problem.
And retention starts the day the apprentice shows up on site, not four years later when they qualify.
The industry will keep pushing for more funding and more enrolments. Fine. But until the back door gets fixed, the front door doesn’t matter much.
If you’re still trying to fix this by bringing more apprentices through the front door, while half are leaving out the back, we should probably talk.
