Connecticut’s apprentice-to-licensed journeyman hiring ratio is an acknowledged long-standing problem in the state. But despite the very real impact on the state’s construction workforce, bills introduced annually in the legislature ultimately haven’t gone anywhere.

One reason for this, according to the few discussions on the subject that happen in front of the public, is differences of opinion between stakeholders, chiefly union and nonunion shops, which have prevented any consensus from forming on the issue.

But this year, legislators and stakeholders who privately worked with them did manage to reach a consensus on a bill that offered a solution, just not to the problem many stakeholders, chiefly construction firms who say the ratio hurts the amount of business they can do, have been asking to have addressed.

Like other states, Connecticut has an apprentice-to-journeymen ratio for job sites. It applies to 80 different types of apprenticeships in construction, including electrical, plumbing, heating, piping, cooling, sprinkler fitting, and metalworking trades.

But unlike surrounding states, Connecticut’s ratio applies not only to work done on job sites, but also to the hiring of apprentices. Under the state’s three-to-one ratio rule, if a firm has six journeymen, it can take on four apprentices. To take on a fifth, it would first have to hire an additional three journeymen.

This places an artificial cap on the number of new construction workers entering the Connecticut workforce.

As Sen. Henri Martin, R-Bristol, stated on the floor of the Senate during a vote on SB 1465, a bill aimed at providing ratio relief for some smaller family-run firms, the ratio meant they couldn’t even hire their own family members.

It also has an impact on new graduates entering the workforce. Connecticut, like many states, has a technical high school program. It costs taxpayers around $200 million per year. But many students who graduate aren’t able to find a job in the state, in part because of the hiring ratio.

In previous years, those lobbying for an end to the hiring ratio have pointed to unions, who believe eliminating it would compromise worker safety and the quality of work, as a reason the hiring ratio has not been changed since 2017, despite consistent complaints about worker shortages from construction firms.

In 2025, it wasn’t the hiring ratio that the legislature focused on during session; it was the narrower issue of ratio relief.

The relief process, which is not simple, is intended to allow companies to petition the government to suspend the hiring ratio so they can take on more apprentices without first hiring additional journeymen. It is therefore limited to companies that have been attempting unsuccessfully to hire additional journeymen. The application notes that applicants must have advertised an open journeyman position on the government’s CTHires website for at least 30 days before the application will be reviewed.

Companies seeking relief also have to provide a considerable amount of information about themselves: what type of firm, how long they’ve been in business, how many times they’ve previously applied for relief in the past five years, whether the company or anyone involved in the company has been involved in various legal actions over the past five years, current employment numbers for journeymen and apprentices, the educational background of apprentices for which the company is seeking relief, wage information, and employment termination records for the past five years.

Limited data shows relief requests are used frequently. The Department of Labor (DOL) told Inside Investigator in December 2024 that it had received 305 requests for relief from 250 companies, 276 of which were granted, since the legislature last tweaked the hiring ratio in 2017. A Freedom of Information Act request for applications and decisions for ratio relief applications submitted since then was still pending at the time of publication.

Administration of the process is also a little muddled as it falls between the scope of two agencies. DOL administers the registered apprenticeship training program for the construction industry and others. The agency also reviews and approves applications for ratio relief. But it’s the Department of Consumer Protection (DCP) that oversees professional licensing—and state statute authorizes DCP to set the hiring ratio for the construction trades.

This year’s SB 1465, the first bill addressing the hiring ratio to become law since 2017, addresses this issue by giving control of the ratio relief process to DCP, starting on October 1, 2025.

The law also seeks to alleviate the ratio bottleneck by requiring DCP to issue decisions within 10 days of receiving an application. 

It allows contractors to apply to DCP to hire additional apprentices, up to 8 in total, outside the ratio if certain conditions are met, and requires, as with current ratio relief applications, that companies submit information about themselves and their hiring practices. Further, it codifies the ratio relief process, which was not previously outlined in state statute.

Unlike the current process, the law shortens the time period for which companies must report information from five years to three. It also requires DCP to approve relief applications if: hiring an additional apprentice does not exceed a one-to-one apprentice-to-journeyman ratio, the apprentice is enrolled in a qualified training program, and the contractor attests they are suffering “from an undue operational hardship due to the applicable allowable hiring ratio.”

The law also specifies that applications will be rejected if a contractor employs more than a total of eight journeymen or if DOL has taken any enforcement action against them in the past three years.

A Senate amendment that was adopted also added requirements for individual licensing boards in the skilled trades to adopt standards for what constitutes “good cause” to approve relief applications referred to them if DCP does not approve them. DCP officials are required to post those standards on their website. Boards must refer to those standards in making a determination about whether the application should be approved. They have 90 days to do so.

Though there was a great deal of bipartisan good feeling and congratulating on the Senate floor when they voted to adopt the bill, a committee bill which had 36 cosponsors, the issue has not always been convivial.

As Rep. Tim Ackert, R-Bolton, told Inside Investigator last December, union and nonunion shops both have had different issues with longstanding attempts to fix the ratio issue. Ackert works in the construction industry and has introduced bills seeking to end the hiring ratio for years. Both the bill’s public hearing and comments prior to the Senate vote were peppered with references to longstanding divisions between different groups on the issue.

Sen. Paul Cicarella, R-North Haven, referenced this during statements made on the floor of the Senate prior to the vote on SB 1465, saying it had “been a bit of a hot topic” between union and nonunion shops during the bill’s public hearing, and they both “had very legitimate concerns.”

Ackert’s testimony in support of the bill included figures noting the percentage of apprentices within the specialty trade who worked for unions and open shops. According to the DOL data Ackert cited, nonunion shops take on the majority of apprentices, ranging from 62.3 percent of sheet metal apprentices to 96.3 percent of one category of heating and cooling apprenticeships. The data also shows the majority of apprentices working in the electrical and heating and cooling trades: out of 4,778 registered apprentices, 2,332 work in the electrical trade and 1,213 work in the heating and cooling trades.

But what the public hearing made clear was just how long the issue has been before the legislature and how much of the work on it was done outside the public eye. 

In remarks made before the vote on the bill, Sen. James Maroney, D-Milford, referenced work done “collaboratively with a number of stakeholders that have signed off on the bill.”

At the public hearing, conversations had between legislators and the few testifiers who appeared in person all referenced conversations with stakeholders happening behind the scenes.

Rep. Roland Lemar, D-New Haven, referenced work going on with stakeholders behind the scenes in two conversations. After Paul Costello, Director of Apprenticeship and Training with the National Electrical Contractors Association and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 90 JATC, offered testimony on the bill, expressing concern about the breadth of the relief and suggesting it should be reserved or students, Lemar said he believed the bill was on the right track “only because you’re willing to work with us and think through the ramifications and the impacts.” He added that Castello’s availability was what was “most important.” 

Rep. David Rutigliano added that due to Costello’s openness and communication, he felt like they’d had “a public hearing many times over.”

Lemar also told Jennifer Jennings of the CT Heating and Cooling Contractors Association, who said the ratio is stifling graduates from technical high schools, that he wanted to “let her know” that he and Cicarella had “numerous meetings” to “reach a consensus with a number of folks who are concerned about modifying ratio relief.” He added that the committee was trying to create a streamlined process, and new ratios were “inherent” to that.

In written testimony, DCP also expressed reservations with the bill, including that the 10-day timeframe to approve relief applications was not long enough, and asked that language be added requiring “the applicant submit ratio relief approval with the apprenticeship application to DOL so that the apprentice can be registered.”

But a number of voices working in the industry not only opposed the bill, but asked legislators to instead focus on the larger issue of the hiring ratio.

Ackert’s testimony told the committee that fixing ratio relief was not the answer to expanding the skilled trades workforce, but eliminating the hiring ratio and limiting the job site ratio to one-to-one would be.

On the Senate floor, Ackert said the bill would create “new jobs in the state of Connecticut, but for good contractors.” Ackert further said that the “good contractors” portion of the bill was key.

This element–of changing the law primarily to help good actors in the industry–was emphasized in <testimony?>, as was the law’s anticipated benefits for smaller “mom and pop” firms.

In his written testimony, Costello wrote that the bill would allow firms to “show a commitment to quality training and workforce development, ensuring that relief is not simply a short-term fix for temporary jobsite needs.”

Testimony from industry members also frequently referenced the need to make the relief process more transparent and consistent.

Though SB 1465 became law, it received considerably less public attention during the committee process than HB 6786, which received over 300 pieces of written testimony. Several pieces of testimony on SB 1465 urged the committee to instead support HB 6786 as originally written. 

The original bill called for a one-to-one ratio for all skilled trades, but a joint favorable substitute passed by the Commerce Committee changed the bill to require DOL to adopt regulations to allow skilled trade companies to hire one or more additional contractors if they couldn’t employ enough licensees to meet the hiring ratio. It was sent to the General Law Committee, and no further action was taken. 

A great deal of testimony opposing the bill from those working in the trade came from identical form letters. Union voices also made up the majority of opposition to the bill, based on concerns that a change in ratio would jeopardize safety and the quality of construction work. 

But testimony also frequently referenced the issues created by the hiring ratio, suggesting that while a number of stakeholders view the bill as an improvement—the first real step forward that’s been reached since the legislature created a working group in 2017 that failed to reach any consensus on how to solve the problems created by the hiring ratio—they are not convinced it will solve the larger issue.

“While we appreciate the intent of this bill, efforts to amend the ratio relief process fall short of the reforms needed to safeguard the future of our state and the construction industry. The number of skilled workers we need to meet current and future demand will not be adequately addressed by allowing the current hiring restriction to remain in place.” the president of the Associated Builders and Contractors of Connecticut wrote in testimony on the bill. “We urge members of this committee to support changes to the hiring ratio, which would eliminate the need for a ratio relief process. There are so many good contractors who need workers and want to hire and train them. The idea that these Connecticut businesses would need to appeal to the state to hire and train workers, who want to be hired and trained, seems contrary to our goals of job growth, infrastructure improvement and affordability.”

As in previous years, there were a number of bills that were filed and aimed to fix the broader problem—the hiring ratio:

• HB 5046 would have changed the three-to-one hiring ratio to match the one-to-one jobsite ratio.
• HB 5092 would have amended statute to “establish safe and successful” hiring ratios.
• HB 5322, HB 5324, HB 6484, and SB 155 all would have changed the hiring ratio to one-to-one for “all skilled trades.
• SB 145 would have done the same, but only for commercial projects.
• SB 226 would have gotten rid of the hiring ratio entirely for construction firms with fewer than 20 licensees and changed the ratio to one-to-one for larger firms.
• SB 388 would have done the same, but also would have created license reciprocity–something Connecticut currently does not have for any licensed occupation–with other states for those “whose work is necessary to construct homes in this state.” It would also have limited license fees for skilled tradespeople to $100 annually.
• SB 608 would have increased the ratio to five-to-one.
• HB 538 would have required DCP to create a two-to-one ratio for two years and asked the agency to work with the DOL commissioner to develop standards for exceptions to the ratio, increase fines for contractors who violate the ratios, and audit workforce development programs funded by the state to gauge their effectiveness. It also asked the Connecticut State Department of Education to create a rubric for career pathway training programs and an accelerated pathway for teacher certification for those working in the trades.

None of those bills ever received a hearing.

SB 224 sought to require the DOL to act on applications for ratio relief within 10 business days. If the agency failed to do so, applications would have been considered approved by default. Despite being very similar to SB 1465, the bill, which was sponsored by Cicarella, never received a hearing.

There is data backing up the claims of construction industry voices. 

Data from the Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD) shows a precipitous decline in both new construction and the sale of new homes in recent years. 

In 2024, according to DECD data, there were 6,840 new housing units built across the state–a decline of nearly 2,000 units built in the previous year.

New home sales have also slowed. Between 2021 and 2022, the last years for which data was available, new home sales across the state declined by 18,000 units according to DECD data.

These numbers put Connecticut behind both the nation’s average and the rest of the New England region. According to a recent study from the Connecticut Business and Industry Association (CBIA), the state has an estimated 100,000 to 150,000 housing unit shortage. Connecticut’s construction rate also lags well behind both the national and regional averages.

That’s not a new problem.

In December 2005, construction across the US peaked at 7.29 units per 10,000 people according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

At the same time period, Connecticut was building just 2.73 units per 10,000 people. 

The 2008 mortgage crisis caused a slowdown in Connecticut’s housing sector, which was already declining. Home building hasn’t recovered since.

In 2011, the state approved just 3,071 new housing permits. 

“Since the 2011 low, Connecticut has failed to exceed 1.59 units permitted per 10,000 residents in any month (12-month rolling average), with annual production peaking at 6,499 units in 2024.

In June 2025, the last month for which data was available at the time of publication, there were just 356 building permits authorized for new private homes, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. 

While housing construction in the state continues to stagnate, the housing construction rate in the nation as a whole has since recovered to nearly the same rate as before the mortgage crisis, rising from a monthly per capita rate of 1.85 permits per 10,000 people in April 2011 to a rate of 5.35 permits per 10,000 people in July 2022. 

Regionally, Connecticut also lags behind most of the rest of the Northeast in housing construction—with the exception of Rhode Island—and lags particularly far behind neighboring Massachusetts.

According to the CBIA’s report, while Connecticut and Massachusetts had “roughly comparable housing production rates” prior to the 2008 crisis, Massachusetts’ recovery far outpaced Connecticut’s.

“[B]eginning in 2013, the two states decoupled, with Massachusetts accelerating housing production and maintaining this elevated output over the subsequent decade. This sustained production gap indicates that policy choices and regulatory environments—rather than merely regional economic conditions—likely played a role in Connecticut’s continued housing underproduction.” the CBIA wrote in its report.

But it’s not just house construction that’s declined; it’s employment for those who build houses as well.

Employment, which fluctuates depending on the time of year, has been slowly working its way upwards since bottoming out around the 2008 mortgage crisis and again following the COVID-19 pandemic, but there are nearly 10,000 fewer construction workers in the state than a decade ago, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

The overwhelming majority of jobs in the construction sector fall under the category of specialty trade contractors. In September 2024, the last month for which BLS data was available, 71 percent of quarterly construction jobs were in the specialty trades.

Within the construction trade are the types of jobs that are subject to Connecticut’s apprentice ratio. Jobs like electrical work, painting, and plumbing

With the overhauled ratio relief process set to debut in October, time—and data—will tell whether it’s enough to help alleviate the state’s construction worker and housing shortage.

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