Biden Aims for Expanded Apprenticeships With Industry Skeptical

A new executive order instructing the federal government to prioritize registered apprenticeship participants in their contracting and grant decisions could be a catalyst for expanding job training opportunities in industries desperate for high-skilled workers.

But employers, whose buy-in would be essential to any growth in the registered apprenticeship system, are skeptical that the US Labor Department’s program should be the vehicle for delivering those new training opportunities to workers, raising concerns about the process and requirements to participate.

The order, announced March 6, instructs federal agencies to prioritize grant applicants and contract bidders that have hired former apprentices when doling out grant money or hiring a contractor. It also calls on government agencies to find areas where they can expand their own registered apprenticeship offerings and create new pathways to federal government jobs.

Apprenticeships have taken a prominent role in the administration’s campaign to create “good jobs,” which has touted the DOL’s registered apprenticeship system as an alternative pathway to the middle class, and one that offers higher wages and benefits without the debt that comes with a college degree.

How the order will work in practice is likely to take shape in the coming weeks. A task force comprised of leaders of several federal agencies, including the director of the Office of Management and Budget and the secretary of labor, is due to issue a report by Sept. 2 with recommendations for federal agencies on how to implement the order, as well as an analysis on how the registered apprenticeship system could benefit government hiring and equity practices.

The goal, according to current and former Biden administration officials, is to spur an expansion of new registered apprenticeship opportunities writ large, fueled by businesses seeking out more apprentices to make themselves look more attractive in the contract bidding and grant application process, and by the federal government’s investment in its own apprenticeship training programs.

“As the largest employer and producer of goods and services, we see the federal government being a model for the use and like really promotion of when we talk about skills based hiring,” said Manny Lamarre, deputy assistant secretary for employment and training at the DOL.

“We could also see key areas or broader sectors being elevated through those procurement and grant incentives,” he said.

Reduced Competition?

The EO tasked the working group with assisting federal agencies to identify programs that could include new requirements or incentives for grantees and contractors “to adopt or expand Registered Apprenticeship programs for their workforces.”

But the panel will also have to navigate concerns raised by employers, which say registered apprenticeships are just too onerous to set up.

The Associated Builders and Contractors, a construction industry trade association, said it supports the expansion of registered apprenticeships, but warned that the executive order would “undermine” federal infrastructure investments by reducing competition for companies that don’t participate in the registered apprenticeship system.

“This order, a product of the White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment, appears to disproportionately benefit unionized contractors and unions,” said Ben Brubeck, ABC vice president of regulatory, labor and state affairs. Brubeck cited data indicating that about 69% of registered apprenticeship participants in the construction industry are in union programs.

John Pallasch, who led the DOL’s Employment and Training Administration during the Trump administration, said that while he believes it’s a “really good idea” for the federal government to incentivize grant applicants to use registered apprenticeship programs, he noted it’s not appropriate to “include requirements or application valuation factors that mandate or unfairly provide advantages for pre-existing registered apprenticeship programs.”

“Saying ‘Hey, if you have registered apprenticeships, you get 50 points out of 100,’ well, you’ve just now eliminated everybody who doesn’t have one,” Pallasch said. “You eliminated new people from coming into the government, and that’s not what we want.”

More Offerings

But unions, as well as current and former Biden administration officials, said a coordinated focus on creating job training pathways to federal government jobs would lead to new trades, skills, and industries being added to the registered apprenticeship system, which would put pressure on the private sector to keep up to stay attractive in the labor market.

“The expansion of registered apprenticeships within the federal government will create new opportunities for working Americans to advance their careers and find stable, well-paid employment in the trades while also ensuring our nation is equipped with the skills and expertise needed to meet the challenges of the future,” American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett Kelley said in a statement.

Biden administration officials also noted campaigns by the DOL in recent years to rapidly scale up apprenticeships in certain fields, arguing that the government’s success in those efforts should be evidence to help alleviate businesses’ fears about the process.

DOL’s Lamarre noted the agency also offers a “standards builder,” which provides tools to help structure a job training program’s guidelines to meet the registered apprenticeship system’s requirements and can help accelerate the registration process.

Harin Contractor, a former senior policy adviser for the White House National Economic Council who was involved in drafting the order, pointed to the administration’s “Cybersecurity Apprenticeship Sprint” in 2022 as part of that evidence. In the course of 120 days, nearly 200 new cybersecurity registered apprenticeships were approved by the DOL or had started development.

Contractor predicts that the DOL could emulate those accelerator programs for other skills in high demand within the federal government.

“It is really exciting to the potential we could see here with a variety of occupations that could benefit,” he said.