California apprentice prevailing wage rates and ratios

Journeyman determinations don't list apprentice pay. A # after the craft name marks it as apprenticeable, and 42 of the 53 trades on this site carry that mark somewhere in the state. Water well drillers, hauling drivers and tree trimmers are among those that don't. The apprentice rates sit on separate wage sheets: on DIR's apprentice wage sheet page you pick a determination period and a county, then an occupation, and the sheet lists each training period with its own wage and employer payments.

Title 8, section 230.1(b) says apprentices "shall be paid the applicable apprentice prevailing per diem wage rate, available from DAS." Every sheet opens with the condition attached: the rates "are paid only to apprentices registered with the State of California, Division of Apprenticeship Standards, for work the registered apprentice performs in his/her specific craft or trade." Nobody else qualifies for the apprentice rate, and DAS runs a registered apprentice search to check.

A sheet can hold more than one table. The Alameda electrician sheet has separate tables for shifts 1, 2 and 3, each with ten periods. The laborer sheet for Alameda is labeled "Area 1" and covers the six counties of the laborers' Area 1; the carpenter sheet covers the nine counties of carpenter Area 1.

The three programs climb differently. The electrician sheet starts lowest, at 40%, and takes ten six-month periods to reach 80%. Carpenters start at 60% and step up 5 points every six months to 95%. Laborer apprentices move by hours worked, not months: four periods of 1,000 on-the-job hours, from 65% to 90%. The laborer sheet says its rates "are based on Group 3, Area 1 Journeyman rate," $40.40, so the percentages are of that group's wage.

Health and welfare is paid at the full journeyman amount from day one, $21.16 an hour on the electrician sheet. Pension is not. In periods 1 and 2 the electrician pension column holds only the 3% National Electrical Benefit Fund amount ($0.95), and the sheet notes "local pension contributions begin in Period 3," where the column jumps to $12.31. That is why the total rises $13.30 between periods 2 and 3, against $2.06 from period 1 to period 2.

The carpenter sheet pays no pension until period 5 ($11.70 from then on), and its "Other" column adds the annuity from period 3. The laborer sheet pays no pension in period 1 and $15.46, the full journeyman amount, from period 2. An apprentice's employer payments come from the sheet line for that apprentice's period, not from the journeyman line.

DAS states the rule as "one hour of apprentice work for every five hours performed by a journeyman level worker," under Labor Code section 1777.5(g). Its minimum ratio page adds three details that change how it is counted:

• It is per craft. Carpenter hours and electrician hours are tallied separately.
• It counts straight time only, "not overtime."
• It is measured over the whole project: "At the end of the project, straight time apprentice hours must equal one hour for every five straight time journeyman hours for each craft." DAS's example is 100 journeyman hours needing 20 apprentice hours.

The ratio applies to public works contracts of $30,000 or more, and DAS's requirements page says the duty "applies to all contractors and subcontractors on a project, even if their part of the project is less than $30,000," unless the determination shows the craft doesn't require apprentices. A contractor working under a program's own standards may use the maximum ratio those standards set. DAS also lists ratio exemptions for some crafts and regions: Northern California operating engineers must use at least one apprentice for every four journeymen, and contractors working with the Northern California Laborers Joint Apprenticeship Training Committee don't have to hire an apprentice until four journeymen are on the site.

Section 230.1(c) ties the apprentice to a program: apprentices on public works "shall be registered apprentices who are training under apprenticeship standards that include the work processes that the contractor will perform on the project," and they "cannot be assigned work other than that which is stated in the work processes of the apprenticeship standards under which the apprentices are training." An electrical apprentice can't be put on drywall work, for example.

Enforcement runs through the Labor Commissioner. Under 230.1(b), DAS "shall refer complaints alleging any contractor's failure to pay the proper apprentice prevailing wage rate" to the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement. A contractor that depends on a temp agency for apprentices stays responsible: DAS says "it is the contractor who will be responsible for any resulting penalties."

One exception to the hiring duty is on DAS's list: a federal project whose funding contains no city, county or state money, unless a state agency administers it.

The training amount is the Training column of the determination: $2.43 an hour for Alameda inside wiremen, $1.36 for Northern California carpenters and $0.52 for Northern California laborers, the same figure on the apprentice sheets as on the journeyman line. DAS says training funds "can only be paid to the workers directly if they perform a non-apprenticeable craft." DAS also notes that a short job is still covered: "Even if a job will take less than 40 hours, the contractor must submit a DAS 140 and DAS 142."

The electrician and carpenter sheets above say there are no predetermined increases. The laborer sheet carries a double asterisk and lists the journeyman increases (the first is $3.62 on June 28, 2027), then says "there may be corresponding predetermined increase(s) to the apprentices associated with this journeyman craft/classification." DIR asks for those to be requested from its Research Unit at statistics@dir.ca.gov. Apprentice increases aren't printed on the sheet, so a contractor with laborer apprentices on a job past June 2027 has to ask for them.

Journeyman rates and their increases for every county are on the trade pages, for example Alameda electricians and Alameda laborers. The pay guides for electricians, carpenters and laborers compare the journeyman rates across counties.