The time to worry about recruiting and training young tradies was about a decade ago. You can’t make a bunch of kids into 10+ year skilled journeymen in 3 or 4 years, and unless employers are forced they’re going to continue fighting over the most experienced employees and leave the apprentices to rot without an opportunity to be trained.
Industry and government should have taken this seriously when it was brought up years ago that there was a big generation drop-off in most trades, but it looks like someone tossed that mess down the later-tube and now, it’s later. They should have been mandating mandatory apprentice ratios in workplaces years ago, instead of letting apprentices be used as labour and then fail their exams due to not being taught their trade.
To be fair, in places where income taxes are bracketed rather than in smooth percentages, it can happen. It’s much more common with bonuses and heavy OT to jump you up for a single paycheque, though.