Apprenticeship in Review 2021

Each year in November, the U.S. Department of Labor celebrates National Apprenticeship Week, highlighting the innovations and accomplishments of American apprentices and their sponsors, advocates, and educators. For the fourth year running, our team at the Center on Education & Labor at New America (CELNA) is publishing our Apprenticeship in Review, a look back at the work we’ve done and the trends we’ve followed over another eventful year in American apprenticeship policy and practice.

Despite some welcome job creation and promising bumps in wage growth throughout the year, the American economy was still at least four million jobs below its February 2020 level in October 2021. National unemployment remained one percentage point higher than two years before; the labor force participation rate was two percentage points lower. As the United States continues its slow recovery from the economic convulsions of the coronavirus pandemic, apprenticeship has received attention as a way to help Americans return to work, or to launch new careers.

Beginning in February 2021, New America participated in the Better Employment and Training Strategies (BETS) Taskforce, convened by researchers at the George Washington Institute of Public Policy, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, and Corporation for a Skilled Workforce. In policy briefs setting out frameworks for a national jobs strategy, workforce-focused infrastructure spending, and youth employment, among other topics, analysts from New America and BETS partner organizations highlighted the role apprenticeship can play in the Biden-Harris administration’s strategic priorities of job quality and equitable opportunity.

Apprenticeship also saw renewed interest as a way to strengthen the nation’s critical public health workforce, which has been battered by the increased workload and new occupational risks of the pandemic era. In August, Ivy Love published a brief detailing a health care apprenticeship initiative at Dallas College. Although the initiative launched in 2019, when shortages of nurses and other health care professionals were already severe in Texas, it has recently taken on new urgency. Drawing on its existing apprenticeship experience, the tradition of work-based learning in health care occupations, and support from the U.S. Department of Labor, Dallas College uses apprenticeship both to train new entrants to its region’s health care workforce and to support professional growth and earning power through upskilling.

With businesses bracing against new labor shortages and young people facing a changing and uncertain job market, 2021 saw continued growth in the size and sophistication of youth apprenticeship programs nationwide.

Since 2018, New America has led the Partnership to Advance Youth Apprenticeship (PAYA), a national initiative focused on expanding apprenticeship opportunities that begin in high school. PAYA’s initial Accelerator Cohort included nine state, regional, and municipal partnerships. They were joined this year, in PAYA’s second phase, by the six members of the new Development Cohort. This group of early-stage partnerships is using existing education and workforce networks to lay the foundations of sustainable youth apprenticeship systems. From statewide efforts such as Indiana’s to hyper-local initiatives in cities like Kalamazoo, MI, and in occupational fields as disparate as construction and cybersecurity, the work of PAYA grantees and the broader PAYA Network is adding to a growing body of best practice in American youth apprenticeship.

Building a successful youth apprenticeship partnership takes time, relationship management, and careful balancing of the priorities of educators, employers, and government. As youth apprenticeship expands nationwide, practitioners have seen a growing emphasis on data collection that can support evaluation and continuous improvement. In September, Joyce Hwang published the Youth Apprenticeship Data Framework, highlighting the data elements necessary to monitor and improve youth apprenticeship implementation at the level of partnerships, programs, and individual participants.

The coronavirus pandemic has highlighted the importance of involving the primary users of youth apprenticeship—young people themselves—in how programs are built and run. In 2021, New America and PAYA partners participated in several projects designed to empower youth, including an Apprentice & Family Voice Learning Series hosted by the National Alliance for Partnerships in Equity; a 10-week design sprint on incorporating youth apprentice voices in program design; and a series of focus groups led by New America’s Molly Martin, where over 40 young people shared their perspectives on work, wages, and work-based learning programs.

It is difficult to encapsulate the efforts of nearly 50 PAYA Network members, each facing their own policy environments and economic circumstances, and all grappling with pandemic disruptions. But at the end of October, PAYA grantees and Network members came together for a virtual site visit to the Charleston Regional Youth Apprenticeships program, co-hosted by Trident Technical College and New America. The event featured perspectives of employers, education and workforce leaders, and youth apprentices from across the Charleston, SC region. The U.S. Department of Labor’s Acting Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Angela Hanks also spoke about the extent of youth apprenticeship’s recent growth.

Recessions typically lead to spikes in college enrollment, including at community colleges. But as in so many other areas, here the coronavirus pandemic has been different. Total enrollment in higher education dropped almost 4 percent from the spring of 2019 to the spring of 2021, and almost 12 percent at community colleges over the same period. According to a survey from New America’s Higher Education team, 41 percent of students who left college during the coronavirus pandemic did so because they needed to work. As colleges, workforce systems, and state governments have scrambled to encourage learners back onto higher education pathways, apprenticeship’s earn-and-learn model has proved a helpful option for balancing immediate financial imperatives with the need to train for a better job.

In March, New America’s Center on Education & Labor convened college-based apprenticeship leaders from across the country to discuss the challenges and successes of the past year. In a wide-ranging conversation summarized by Ivy Love in blog posts on EdCentral, practitioners discussed pandemic-driven changes to program development as well as adaptations in the student-apprentice experience. Even once the day-to-day effects of COVID-19 wane, flexibility in apprentices’ related instruction, support from business partners and industry intermediaries on developing occupational frameworks, and streamlined data sharing between apprenticeship stakeholders will be crucial for learners’ success.

For community colleges across the country working to boost enrollments, apprenticeships are also a part of a movement to better align educational offerings with employers’ demands and provide quicker transitions into well-paid work. In May, New America launched its 2021 New Models for Career Preparation cohort, which included apprenticeship provider Bates Technical College in Washington State alongside five colleges delivering boot camps, industry certifications, customized training, and other skill-building options. Building off of New America’s past projects supporting community college innovation, the first New Models cohort has worked to improve institutional practices and ensure that their programs successfully move learners into high-quality jobs. A second cohort featuring additional apprenticeship providers is coming in 2022.

Apprenticeship watchers who came into 2021 with optimism are unlikely to leave it disappointed. Although the pandemic dented national apprenticeship growth in 2020, total apprenticeship participation is still trending upwards. Large federal investments and impressive innovation at the state level mean there is plenty to look forward to next year.

The Department of Labor has awarded over $150 million in new grants and contracts to support apprenticeship expansion so far in 2021, building on record investments in 2020. Four national Registered Apprenticeship technical assistance centers received a total of $31 million, and $3.3 was awarded under the Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations program. In June, 15 states received a total of nearly $100 million in State Apprenticeship Expansion grants aimed at supporting equity-driven, sector-based strategies to increase apprenticeship participation. Other federal agencies also announced grants to support apprenticeship. The Department of Commerce’s Investing in America’s Communities initiative will pump $3 billion into state and local workforce and economic development activities, including apprenticeships, while the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency announced a first-of-its-kind $2 million grant to encourage the use of apprenticeships to grow cyber talent.

Although these federal investments demonstrate a continued commitment to apprenticeship, and despite some policy bright spots—including a pause and potential rescindment of the misguided industry-recognized apprenticeship program experiment and the reconvening of the Advisory Committee on Apprenticeship—some important federal apprenticeship policies have not yet been enacted. The Biden-Harris administration’s Build Back Better Act features $1 billion over five years to expand registered apprenticeship, youth apprenticeship, and pre-apprenticeship, as well as additional funding to support apprenticeships in health care, cybersecurity, and climate change mitigation, but it remains deadlocked in Congress as of this writing. Similarly, the National Apprenticeship Act of 2021, which would reauthorize and valuably reform the key legislation governing Registered Apprenticeship, has not yet come up for a vote in the Senate. It easily passed in the House of Representatives in February.

This year’s federal funding for apprenticeship expansion, and work made possible by previous investments, will support apprenticeship innovations with long-lasting impacts. Expansion efforts in California, Indiana, South Carolina, Texas, and other states have already made important, systemic advancements in apprenticeship practice, supporting traditional and non-traditional apprenticeship sectors alike, and conventional adult programs as well as those focused on youth. More must be done if American apprenticeship is to reach its full potential, but 2021 will go down as another year of steady growth.