Apprenticeship is beyond a joke - Apprentice Electrician ETCO Employee Review

1.0
8 Oct 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

They can find you a job

Cons

Incredibly low pay. Very little help for covering expenses when they expect you to travel and stay in another city for a 2 week block course. Awful and mostly irrelevant on-job assignments. Constantly shifting goal posts for expectations and poor communication which makes it difficult to stay on track. Bribes to force you to do the irrelevant on-job work. Increasingly audited on-job work to crack down on people just trying to get these irrelevant on-jobs done. Complete and utter failure to understand what we actually do as an apprentice. Slow to get me out of a very bad situation with an employer and they continued to set the employer up with more apprentices, despite all of the apprentices having very bad feedback. Horrendous cost up front just to get started, which is supposedly to cover tools but then they make you pay even more just to get out of it, which is also supposedly to cover tools. Why are we paying for them twice? They also were mostly quite cheap tools, and not necessarily ones we wanted or needed. The contract is very scammy, requiring you to pay a huge sum of money to get out of it and you feel obliged to sign it since you only get to see it after you've already paid 4 thousand dollars. ETCO is basically trapping you into working for little money, while making the entire process as difficult as possible. 1 star out of 5 is far too generous.

Explore other reviews about ETCO

3.0
12 Jan 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Good for learning experience and building the future

Cons

Salary structure not properly managed for regular review

2.0
6 Jun 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Mostly easily put into contracted work.

Cons

You pay for your initial training $2000+. You are paid training wage for your entire apprenticeship, which is WELL below minimum wage or living wage. Back out of agreements made before contract was signed (contract was only signed because of said agreements). Hiring and firing process is slack and remedial process is very intimidating. Aimed at young workers that think they have no other choice. Businesses pay double+ what worker is paid by ETCO and has the ability to drop said worker on a no notice basis.

See reviews by: Helpful|Rating|Date|All