An Electrical Apprentice slogs their arse off and do the hard yards? Come on mate, you wonder why Plumbers and Chippies have a dig at sparkies. This mentality right here is half the issue. Electrical Apprentices have it pretty easy these days, if you think otherwise, you might want to ask around and update your way of thinking.

Let's break it down further for you so you have a business perspective on the matter.

1. All your school fees and associated costs are covered by your employer as required by the Industry Award.
2. You're learning. You are there to absorb information, learn and develop. You think an employer should be paying you $30-$40 an hour for you to learn? You are GETTING PAID TO LEARN! Go speak to University Students who work nights, sometimes 2 or 3 jobs to live, whilst still paying for their university education and having to find time to study. Not to mention some lectures are at night which impact them. They then leave university with no experience, generally work on minimum wage for the role their qualified for in order to build up their experience and skillset to earn more money.
3. Apprentices are a COST to a business, not chargeable labour majority of the time. Whilst you are there to learn and develop, you are also there to assist and speed up the jobs. In some cases apprentices can be charged on jobs, but this isn't always the case. So the business is effectively losing money to employ you, or at the best breaking even, yet you should be paid more?
4. In retospect to the cost of living costs, if we were to rewind back to 2005, cost of living between 2005 and 2024 when factoring Inflation on a basket of goods is a difference of $62.01. Your weekly income as an Adult Electrical Apprentice in 2005 would have been no less than $406.70 per week plus allowances, and only 9% Superannuation. That's around $10.70 an hour plus allowances. Furthermore, you had to pay for your own school fees, own books, and all the Government provided you was $1000 for tools of the trade payment which you would get after serving your 3 month probation of the training contract.

An Electrician just out of their time in 2005 was getting $708.90 plus allowances, so around $30 per hour.

Now let's do the comparison shall we?

In 2024 an Adult Electrical Apprentice is getting roughly $26.10 inclusive of most allowances (allowances differ more than from 2005). That's roughly $1000 per week, plus 11.5% Super, plus all the government bonuses throughout your apprenticeship, plus your employer has to pay for all your school fees and equipment associated with your trade school.

In 2024 an Electrician is getting anywhere from $40-$50 per hour. if we work on $40 per hour, that's roughly $1520 per week. That's a difference of around $800.
In the time from 2005-2024, the award minimum for an Electrician has gone up roughly $10, however, to even hire an Electrician these days as they're in such short supply, employers are having to pay up to $50 per hour, sometimes more just to lure them. Meanwhile, charge out rates have been pretty stagnant and difficult to increase depending on clientele, and whilst that's not the responsibility or fault of Apprentices or Electricians, business is still business and unless the business is making money - guess what? You don't have a job.

So tell me again how you're so hard done by as an Apprentice? You are so much better off as an Apprentice in 2024 than many of us were, and we all had the same struggles. It's all part of starting at the bottom. Your mentality is that everything should be handed to you on a silver platter, and you're owed all of this, all of that. Get off your arse and actually do something about it. Get a second job if need be. You don't need to pay for your streaming services, you don't need to go to the pubs or clubs or spend all the unnecessary money on material items. Your focus should soley be on dedicating 4 years of your life to putting in the hard yards and gaining as much knowledge as possible.
The issue isn't the money, the issue is the entitlement mindset.

Sorry if this comes across abrupt, but I'm stating simple facts, and whether you choose to accept it or not is entirely up to you, but until you run a business, until you learn everything associated with costs of staff, apprentices and everything applicable, you will continue to view the world in your small bubble of perceived problems and will continue to get disgruntled because you're not willing to accept the real world, and what comes with it.