Posted on 07/12/2017 8:24:39 AM PDT by Kaslin
Last month, President Trump signed an executive order to boost apprenticeship programs in the United States. These are training programs, offered in a variety of formats, usually by businesses, to convey skills to individuals for specific vocations.
It's a great idea, but like all great ideas, the key is in execution.
Currently, 505,000 people have apprenticeships through 2,100 programs registered with the government. President Trump has committed to a lofty goal of creating 5 million apprenticeships over the next five years.
Truth is, I get nervous whenever I hear about any government initiative that claims to provide what our economy needs.
The last thing we need is a new army of government bureaucrats pretending they are going to forecast what kind of jobs we need and then subsidizing businesses and unions to set up training programs.
But Trump's plan doesn't appear to do that. It establishes a wide berth for firms, or unions, or trade associations to decide on their own what they need to do. Those who are actually doing the work and doing the hiring need to decide themselves who and what they need.
Current data from the labor market screams out that we can do a better job building a work force fitting what businesses need.
The Labor Department reported 6.04 million job openings in April and 5.05 million hires. So a million jobs are still floating out there looking to be filled.
At the same time, there were 6.9 million unemployed. Sure, you say, they don't have the skills for those million jobs. But isn't that the point? Isn't this the work we need to do -- get those who cant find work trained and motivated?
Furthermore, if we care about our nation's future, we've got to look at the deeper social problems leading to pockets of chronic unemployment.
There are 1.7 million who are unemployed in the long term, 27 weeks or more. We have a growing population, disproportionately prime-age men, who have just dropped out of the labor force.
The black unemployment rate has been double the national average for the last half-century and that is roughly where it is today. Black youth ages 16-19 have an unemployment rate of 27.3 percent.
So, if I am nervous about government bureaucrats planning out apprenticeship programs, what can government do?
Trump is proposing the federal government putting up $200 million to help firms makes these apprenticeships happen. Good, but we can't rely on new government spending to be the answer.
The answer is removing barriers. Here are two ways.
One, consider vocational schools and training as part of education choice.
Senators Ted Cruz and Mike Lee introduced a bill, the Enhancing Educational Opportunities for All Students Act, in the last Congress that would permit use of Section 1 education funds -- funds that the federal government gives to school districts to help low-income children -- to enable any child to go wherever they want to school.
Why should that $14 billion be locked in the public school system? Give a poor child a voucher, or the equivalent, that can be used to go to a vocational school. Businesses could joint venture and help finance and build the programs to train these kids.
So let's dust off and pass the Enhancing Educational Opportunities bill. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is the right person in the right place to help make this happen.
Second, let businesses use the funds they spend on training to count toward salary for purposes of the minimum wage. This would allow a firm to hire a young person and pay below minimum wage but also provide training, the value of which would hike the wage above the minimum. This is a way around the damage that minimum wage causes and provide a platform for unskilled youth to get trained.
If we use government to make the marketplace more free and flexible, apprenticeships can help build a 21st-century American labor force.
Good ideas.
I agree, those are good ideas. I am skeptical about any new spending, when so much of our current spending is wasted.
There seems to be a general agreement that apprenticeship programs are valuable for employers and employees. If we don’t have these programs, it seems to me that a likely reason is the legal barriers and labor-market distortions caused by government. On the other hand, if we got the government’s foot off education and labor, we might find that other forms of job preparation were preferred by employers and employees.
Most of my generation learned a trade, profession or skill during the Vietnam era...either voluntarily or by draft. I went into the Air Force kicking and screaming but learned advanced electronics and from there it has supported me well throughout my life and at 70 I am still running the business I founded. It’s not that I need to work...I would die of boredom if I didn’t.
Now, getting to the government handling apprentice programs there is some serious concern. RULE 1. If the government ever grants ANY private company or organization money to perform a function, it immediately generates graft, corruption and inept management by both the government and private concern. In summary: The waste, corruption and graft along with “special favors” begin. RULE 2. When government tries to operate a professional business it soon becomes mired down in “politically correct” management and the goal of even “breaking even” goes out the window within 6 months of the startup.
I would recommend a system in which the prospective participant wanted to join be operated like the military schools back in the 60’s and 70’s. Not only is a skill taught...SELF-DISCIPLINE is taught too. I don’t care who it is...if they don’t have the self-discipline to make themselves do things they don’t like...they will only waste our money and become a “drag” on the taxpayer.
Making the unemployed/underemployed learn to actually DO stuff would be racist and *pobre-phobic.
Pobre = POOR in Spanish.
Go to zero-based budgeting and a full accounting of every dollar spent.
Yeah, but I don’t think it did any good if you were in the infantry, because most employers thought when you got out, all what you did was march and shoot some rifles.
As long as they don’t discriminate against white males.
Spending is not the answer per se as the real issue is alignment between what they study and the career path you are setting yourself upon
In my business college is referred to as the new High school, which tells us that deliberately DoE has promoted turning young people into the workforce with severely degraded or non existent skills
So, as in other countries when a student chooses a career path their education choices lie along it. The college they attend, the instructors and the degree must align with the industry segment they aspire to
With this in place, under a model I have already designed and documented the first 2 years of college are foundational to that discipline. After year 2 a company can then offer them an apprentice position with them and integrate the courses taken in years 3-4 with company initiatives. Additionally, the student can become an active member of programs and projects underway in the company as and Intern or better an apprentice. This is the key as in adult learning education without a purpose is rejected in favor of mere credit gap filling.
At graduation the “apprentice” now can integrate successfully into the company and provide meaningful participation immediately and grow into a “journeyman” level of competence and productivity
As they proceed they can attain and hone additional skills, finally ascending into a Master Craftsman state
It is essentially the Guild model integrated into today
My youngest son just completed his Electrician’s Apprenticeship. The way he ended up in the program is pretty interesting. He was working as a plumber’s helper for $9.00 an hour, which is pretty good for kid who just graduated high school. Well one day he was on a job at a huge house out at Martinez Lake just north of Yuma AZ. The guy he was helping had hurt his back so he stayed in the truck while my boy dug trench in 110 degree heat. The home owner watched him work his but off all week never complaining while his partner did nothing.
The homeowner happened to own an Electrical contracting business in Phoenix, and when the job was complete he asked my son if he would like to work for him. He told my son he would pay him $19 an hour and pay for his school to become a Journeyman Electrician. My son jumped at the offer and 4 years later he is done with the course. He is now making $28 an hour and loves his job.
You are right and I am right.
You are right that many “ground pounders” learned a trade in the Marine Corps and Army but the learned something very valuable to an employer...SELF DISCIPLINE! Would you rather hire a “snotty-nosed” college graduate with a bad attitude and no self-discipline or someone who obeyed orders and did what they were told without whining or wanting to discuss it?
We have the infantry but all of the supporting jobs to support it require training and some form of technical field whether as a cook or a medic.
I doubt that anyone who favors these programs oppose other efforts to reduce regulatory burdens, but any prove effective measures that promote actual useful, marketable work skills in my mind warrant some attention.
Applause. Good ideas from someone who has been there, done that.
IMHO, discipline is the number one thing most job applicants are missing. Again, IMHO, the military draft supplied discipline whether the draftee wanted it or not. True, it was not always successful but most of the time draftees learned discipline, a ‘trade’ that will last a lifetime.
Bump!
Great story. Thanks for sharing.
Apprenticeships for what? Industrial jobs that went overseas 20 years ago? We only need so many plumbers.
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