The idea that apprenticeship programs, especially for industries that hire people with skills in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM skills), is widely accepted and promoted, so the Trump proposal is not out of the mainstream of thinking about barriers to employment and wage growth. However, expecting much of an impact on employment and wage growth from the Trump administration’s turn of attention to apprenticeship programs will only hand you disappointment.
Over the last several decades, American business and government support for workforce training has declined dramatically, as shown by declining funding levels.
At a time when employers are struggling to find the skilled workers they need to fill available jobs, funding to train workers has dropped dramatically. Since just 2010, federal education and training programs have been cut by more than $1 billion.
Federal funding webpage, National Skills Coalition. Accessed June 15, 2017.
The incidence of training in the previous 12 months fell roughly 28 percent overall during the period between 2001 and 2009. The results show that the decline in employer-paid training was wide-spread, affecting most industries, occupations, and demographic groups.
Jeff Waddoups, Did Employers in the United States Back Away from Skills Training during the Early 2000s? Seminar Invitation, Center for Work, Organization, and Wellbeing, Griffith University. Accessed June 15, 2017.
The Trump administration’s proposal does not restore former levels of funding, much less move America to a new level of support for apprenticeship programs. The reason is in plain sight, but studiously “undiscovered” by political and business leaders: American businesses are no longer dependent on a skilled American workforce; dozens of high and middle affluence nations are training skilled workers who then seek work through globally organized recruiting institutions, and then either migrate across national boundaries to workplaces or work across national boundaries without physically moving. In most cases, American businesses can offer these globally available skilled workers more of what they want than can businesses in most other nations, so American businesses generally get the workers they really need.
In addition to sourcing skilled workers from a rapidly growing global pool of skilled workers, American businesses are turning to a rapidly growing supply of robots that are becoming increasing skilled with each passing month and decreasingly costly to own. Robots may not yet be able to take over all skill intensive activities of workers, but competent management teams can (and do) orchestrate teams of human workers and robots so as to hold human staffing steady or even reduce it while still increasing output.
These are the stubborn 21st century realities that no feasible set of U.S. policies can undo or overcome. Despite the widely held belief to the contrary, we are actually living in a world economy weighed down by an oversupply of skilled labor. Fortunately, this fact becomes more apparent with every passing day, but, unfortunately, for a very disturbing reason. As skilled workers around the world are pushed out into the cold because of oversupply with no employment prospects that match the expectations they were told to have, more and more are turning their talents to cyber crime, to designing murderous weapons on an ad hoc basis, and to building terrorist organizations.
A Background Note
The use of apprenticeships and recognizing the value in them goes back thousands of years. More relevantly, U.S. states have long recognized the value of apprenticeship programs and supported and promoted them through legislation; the federal government has done so since 1937.
Since time immemorial, people have been transferring skills from one generation to another in some form of apprenticeship. Four thousand years ago, the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi provided that artisans teach their crafts to youth.
History of Apprenticeship, Washington State Department of Industries. Accessed June 15, 2017.
Since 1937, the Bureau of Apprenticeship and Training has worked closely with employer and labor groups, vocational schools, state apprenticeship agencies, and others concerned with apprenticeship programs in U.S. industry. It has field representatives in the 50 States.
History of Apprenticeship, Washington State Department of Industries. Accessed June 15, 2017.
The point, of course, is that there is nothing new and noteworthy in the Trump administration’s apprenticeship proposal. They are just trotting out old ideas that seem new because they have been pushed aside long enough for many American’s to think they are seeing something new and untried.
IWE WORK FUTURES 