Trump Labor Department boosts apprenticeship push with new website

The Washington Examiner ^ | Aug. 30, 2018 | Sean Higgins

[Oatka]

Apprentice Ryan Buzzy, right, works with Skip Johnson, a trainer for the Stihl Inc. apprenticeship program, on a metalworking lathe in their training area at the Stihl Inc. manufacturing facility in Virginia Beach, Va. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)

The Labor Department unveiled on Thursday a new website to promote business apprenticeship programs, apprenticeship.gov, billed as a "one-stop source for all things apprenticeship." The free site is essentially a search engine intended to help employers promote opportunities for apprenticeships and to help workers find them.

"President Trump’s administration is working to ensure the American workforce has the skills to succeed and the opportunities to secure family-sustaining careers,” said U.S. Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta. “Today’s launch of Apprenticeship.gov offers the first step in better online resources for apprenticeships across all industries.”

Trump's administration has aggressively promoted apprenticeships as an alternative to higher education, arguing there is a strong demand for skilled workers not currently being met and that they provide good-paying careers without having to incur the debt typically entailed by higher education. In a June 2017 executive order Trump declared that "expanding apprenticeships and reforming ineffective education and workforce development programs will help ... more Americans to obtain relevant skills and high-paying jobs." The effort has been applauded by both business groups and organized labor, representatives of both participated in a "task force on apprenticeship expansion.

About 40 percent of all Americans age 18-24 were enrolled in a college or university in 2015, up from 25 percent in 1980, according to Education Department. The increase has lead to a massive spike in student loan debt. US students owe an estimated $1.5 trillion in loans, more than twice the amount from a decade earlier.

[Oatka]

A welcome change - and the kids also benefit by not having to carry a crushing student loan debt.

[gattaca]

bmp

[I want the USA back]

Apprenticeship worked very well in the past. OJT, and if you can’t hack it, you know it right away.

[Harpotoo]

The Gov could take a $1B and put 66,000 or more Americans through Coder Camps and screw all the H1Bers the Tech Comps import here each year!

[McGavin999]

This is so wonderful. No everyone wants or needs a college education but everyone want to be able to earn a good living. There is so much talent that has gone to waste. A functioning society needs plumbers, carpenters, machinists, electricians, HVAC workers.

Nothing makes people feel better than coming home after a good days work.

[Colonel Kangaroo]

If President Trump makes a dent with this initiative, it could be close to his biggest accomplishment. For one thing, it would equip young people with a pathway to productive and secure well-paying long-term jobs to raise families and increase the general national prosperity. Secondly, it would divert young people from the toxic, strife-aggrivating social justice-academic complex.

[Fiddlstix]

Yes! It has always worked very well. Back in my young years (1940's - early 1950's) there was good apprenticeship programs too. Some of my school chums were apprentice carpenters, mechanics, pipe fitters, etc. and went on to start their own businesses as time went by.
They earned more money in the long run than a lot of college grads of my acquaintance