(MENAFN- The Peninsula) By Lance Lambert / Bloomberg
Wheatley Brown III had hit the wall. As an electronics installer, he wasn't going to make a lot of money.
Then, in 2009, the 37-year-old Mississippian took an electrician apprenticeship administered by the Tennessee Valley Authority, the New Deal agency envisioned in 1933 by then-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt as 'a corporation clothed with the power of government but possessed of the flexibility and initiative of a private enterprise. Instead of paying for college, Brown got paid, all the while learning the trade over five years.
'We do the book work, but the on-the-job training and experience, there is no way to put value on it, Brown said. TVA lineman apprenticeships start at around $40,000 a year and rise to $65,000. At the end of the programme, a lineman can earn more than $75,000-and more than $90,000 if he or she makes foreman, as Brown did.
Could apprenticeships be part of the answer to the infamous US skills gap? They would certainly be a useful alternative to college for some Americans graduating heavily in debt and into an economy for which they are unprepared.
Employers have complained for years that the nation doesn't have enough skilled workers to fill the jobs of an increasingly technical workforce. House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis, urged members of the National Association of Manufacturers to mind the gap in a speech Tuesday. On June 15, President Donald Trump, who sees hands-on career training as a solution, signed an executive order to spur apprenticeships.
'Apprenticeships place students into great jobs without the crippling debt of traditional four-year college degrees. Instead, apprentices earn while they learn, Trump said at the signing ceremony, flanked by Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, both Republicans.
But we can't all be the apprentice.
Back in March, during a roundtable discussion on vocational training, Marc Benioff, chief executive officer of Salesforce.com, issued a challenge to the president. "I see a great opportunity right here in the United States to create apprenticeships. And we'd love to encourage you to take a moon shot goal to create five million apprenticeships in the next five years, Benioff said.
"Let's do that," Trump said. "Let's go for that five million."
The problem is, there are only 505,000 apprentices in the US today, according to the Department of Labor, and the total has been growing by an average of 43,000 a year since 2013, a rate far short of what would be needed to reach five million by 2022.
"We don't have the institutional setup to do this," said Anthony Carnevale, director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, who called the president's goal "Trumped up."
Asked about Trump's ambitions for apprenticeships, the White House noted that the president made no mention of the five million goal in the executive order or in his remarks at the signing ceremony, and said that Trump has proposed doubling federal spending on the Apprenticeship USA program, to $200m a year, and aims to simplify the registration process. Currently in the U.S., an employer sponsors and pays an apprentice in line with standards set by the Department of Labor or state agencies.
The government would need to make far more resources available to meet the president's goal, said Robert Lerman, a fellow at the Urban Institute.
"I can't see [five million apprenticeships] in four or five years, Lerman said. "But it could be in 10 years, if done right."
In the US, where apprenticeships are concentrated in electrician, plumbing, carpentry and construction jobs, they would need to be available in more industries and occupations, he said.
Yet moving more career routes into the apprenticeship model would take a massive overhaul in hiring practices and many years to implement. Trump's plan appears to depend partly on a broadening clause in the executive order that allows many existing internships to be categorized as apprenticeships, Carnevale said.
Increasing apprenticeships would take a big financial commitment from employers, too. Siemens estimates that its US apprenticeship program, founded in 2011, costs the company around $187,000 a student. The company partners with local higher education institutions. After completion of the four-year program, graduates leave with an associate degree and a job at Siemens, signing contracts for two years of service.
'I think it would be wonderful to have more apprenticeships. It would definitely help our workforce, Brown, the newly minted Mississippi electrician, said. "Skilled labor is the way to go.
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