Apprenticeships Make a US Comeback With Workers in Short Supply

Like most 18-year-olds, Kyler Kennard didn’t know what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. So after graduating from high school he put off college and took a job as a technician at a subsidiary of Canon U.S.A. Inc., a division of imaging company Canon Inc., near his home in the Dallas suburbs.

Kennard had already been preparing for a career in media technology through a youth apprenticeship program at his high school. He says his job at Canon pays $20 an hour and comes with good benefits—a lot more enticing than his other options, driving ...