Apprenticeships are considered the “gold standard” worldwide for training manufacturing workers. Yet efforts to expand this opportunity have long stagnated in the United States.
In an effort to promote manufacturing apprenticeships, the U.S. Department of Labor recently issued updated guidance on registering new programs that aims to “accelerate growth, reduce burdens, and improve transparency.” Change includes cutting caps on previous work or 12-month on-the-job learning requirements, among others.
The guidance follows the recent announcement of a $35.8 million incentive fund, managed by the Arkansas Department of Commerce, that promises sponsors a sum of $3,500 for every new advanced manufacturing apprentice hired who passes a 90-day probationary period. The state agency said it was chosen to administer the fund due to a recognized ability to “modernize apprenticeship systems.”
These moves are meant to answer President Donald Trump’s 2025 executive order for a plan to help the U.S. “reach and surpass 1 million new active apprentices.”
The most current data as of Fiscal Year 2025 show there are just 678,014 apprentices nationwide, of which 30,479 work in the manufacturing sector. According to one analysis, 41.5% of companies in manufacturing are very small, employing between four or fewer employees and averaging annual revenue of $407,283.
The fund is set to run for four years, but it might be tapped out before its time is up.
“We’ve received over 115 applications from over 33 states for 2,500 apprentices,” said Cody Waits, executive director of Arkansas' Division of Workforce Connections. “If we just approved half of those individuals, we would be basically awarding 10% of the funds within the first five months. I don’t believe the fund will last the full four years, which in my opinion is a great thing.”
The technical challenges of setting up apprenticeships
Most apprenticeships in the U.S. follow an “earn while you learn” structure, letting apprentices rack up hands-on hours doing part-time work while simultaneously earning an associate degree.
Given the acute labor shortage in the manufacturing sector, a structured, nationally-recognized program can be the ideal way to attract and retain talent.
“If you're registered through the Department of Labor, you have a credential that employers can understand. It's a signal of quality in a way that informal programs may not be,” said Shalin Jyotishi, founder of the Future of Work & Innovation Economy Initiative at think tank New America.
The challenge is not necessarily finding applicants to apply, but developing the programs themselves. This includes creating curricula that meet industry needs, finding partners who will support a program’s success and securing funding.
For Haier-owned GE Appliances, which helped found the Louisville chapter of the Kentucky Federation for Advanced Manufacturing Education, Kentucky FAME, the ability to take in apprentices entirely depends on the availability of mentors.
The company’s upcoming cohort includes 10 apprentices from GE Appliances, which is considered a standard number for the program, among a broader group of 20.
“It's not that we don't want to take more,” said Walt Pozgay, manufacturing training manager at GE Appliances. “It's that I can only take as many apprentices as I can get good mentors.”
“We have to remember that our mentors are working maintenance technicians that are trying to keep a plant running,” he said. “And when you do it all, you have to put some guardrails in place so that you don't reach too far one way and sacrifice somewhere else.”
Businesses must also plan time for designing a curriculum and continually adapting it to fit changing industry needs. A close relationship with a technical college or another external partner — such as the one Louisville FAME has with Jefferson Community & Technical College — “really helps,” Pozgay said.
“The growing pains that come with this kind of program is curriculum review,” he said. “We review the program every year. For instance, Jefferson Community & Technical College had a class where most of the people in the industry said, ‘You know what? That class isn’t really necessary for us.’ And next semester, the class changed.”
The new DOL registration requirements, coupled with the incentive fund, are meant to get as many people “off the fence” as possible by allowing for more flexibility. The most significant changes include timely 30-day registration processing, recognition of prior experience, flexibility in training hours and a portal where sponsors can track completion and cancellation rates.
The guidance formalizes workarounds that some programs already employed, such as navigating a 50% cap on credit for prior work experience.
“We already dealt with that even before the new guidance. If someone comes to me and says, ‘I’ve already got 1,000 hours in the electrical union,’ we’ll knock those out and give them credit for that,” Pozgay said. “If you already have a degree, you don’t take your gen eds again.”
The journey to 1 million
According to Waits, increasing registrations shouldn’t be a tall order since plenty of de-facto apprenticeship programs — or structured programs that pair seasoned employees with new hires to teach them specific technical skills — already exist.
“They just don’t realize it,” Waits said.
Formal registration simply unlocks resources, like what’s on offer from the incentive fund, available only to federally recognized apprenticeships.
Waits also said businesses don’t have to go it on their own because the fund recognizes apprenticeship programs operated by groups of employers or trade associations.
“You can be part of a consortia or an intermediary to your college who already sponsors apprenticeship programs. And they take a lot of that burden off of you in terms of reporting and developing standards,” he said.
For small- and medium-sized enterprises, New America’s Jyotishi stressed the option of joining an intermediary, like FAME, which can take on the challenge of program creation, paperwork and even audits.
“In my mind, the greatest barrier to the registration of the apprenticeships is more paperwork-oriented, as opposed to structural work. And that's why these intermediaries are so valuable,” Jyotishi said.
Waits advises interested businesses start by reaching out to a state agency, which has federal contacts and can help them expedite and track their registration process and even access additional funding.
