This story was published on Brookings.edu on Monday, April 23 and written by Martha Ross and Kimberly Hauge. Click here to view the original story as it appears on Brookings.edu.
Apprenticeship has a strong bipartisan appeal as part of the solution to current and future workforce challenges. President Trump released an executive order to expand apprenticeship in 2017 and created a task force to support that expansion. More recently, the bipartisan Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2018 increased federal funding for apprenticeship. Meanwhile, efforts seeded by the Obama administration continue to support the growth of apprenticeship at the state and local levels. And in 2018, eight governors, including Republicans and Democrats, specifically referenced apprenticeship in their State of the State Address as a workforce strategy, and many more referenced the value of work-based learning.
It is certainly good news that more policymakers are on board with expanding apprenticeship, but since the whole point of apprenticeship is to provide paid, work-based learning experiences, more employers need to get on board as well. After all, they’re the ones with the jobs.
The research is clear that apprenticeship programs benefit both workers and businesses. By combining classroom instruction with paid, on-the-job training under the guidance of a mentor, apprenticeship programs help workers gain valuable skills leading to good jobs and careers, and help employers meet their workforce needs, streamline the hiring process, and reduce attrition. An oft-cited report from the U.S. Department of Commerce and Case Western Reserve University found that apprenticeship programs produced returns on investment of 40 to 50 percent. Other research found that participants in apprenticeship programs have substantially higher earnings relative to nonparticipants. At a time when American employers say they can’t find workers with the skills they need, and job seekers say they can’t find good jobs, apprenticeships can be part of the solution.
However, the size and scope of apprenticeship programs in the United States are limited. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, there are just over 440,000 active apprentices as of September 30, 2017. A small fraction of the American population participate in apprenticeship programs compared to other developed countries.
Public policy can support apprenticeships, and educational institutions and unions can be crucial partners, but the threshold criteria for an apprenticeship to succeed are an employer with a job, coupled with a willingness to invest time and money in developing their employees.
Research and experience shows that many employers do not have well-developed internal systems to find and develop talent. Human resources operations are often more operational than strategic, focusing on payroll, on-boarding, and compliance. Companies do not always have the capacityto identify current and future skill needs, target their recruitment efforts more strategically, or carry out succession planning. And the benefits of apprenticeship are not always clear to employers, or at least may seem abstract compared to the up-front work of creating such a program. Therefore, running an apprenticeship program that requires longer-term strategies and resources can be difficult for employers.
The good news is that employers do not need to run apprenticeship programs entirely on their own. By developing policies and incentives to support apprenticeship, states play a significant role in bringing together partners to develop solutions that help their residents find good jobs and their businesses find good workers.