SPARKING an interest
Apprenticeships offer job preparation without burden of education costs
At the Sheet Metal Workers Training Center near Portland Avenue and NW 39 Expressway, apprentices learn how to use tools like cutting torches to fabricate sheet metal parts and install heating and air conditioning ducts, skills they also will hone at job sites in the Oklahoma City metro area with on-the-job training.
For John Fortson, 39, a fourthyear apprentice, the sheet metal training program was a way for him to start over in a new career without student loans and while still working to support his two sons. Fortson’s father and grandfather also were sheet metal workers.
“I have a family, and I had to be able to keep working and be able to earn a decent wage,” Fortson said. “Acquiring student loan debt wasn’t an option.”
Students in the Sheet Metal Workers Local No. 124’s fouryear program receive 200 hours of classroom instruction and also work at job sites under a union contractor, receiving incremental wage increases each year they complete in the program, as well as benefits.
One of the biggest benefits of an apprenticeship is that the apprentice does not have to take on any debt to receive training in a new career, said Trent London, apprenticeship coordinator.
“They graduate with no student debt, and you are put to work while you are in school,” London said.
Still, the union has a hard time recruiting new apprentices, London said.
“Apprenticeships seem to be a well-kept secret,” he said. “A lot of people just don’t get steered that way in high school.”
While the majority of high school students in many European countries complete some type of apprenticeship program before graduation, apprenticeships are not as common in the United States and are on the decline.
In the United States, there were about 398,000 registered apprentices in 2013, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, down 19 percent from about 490,000 in 2003.
Those numbers are in contrast to Germany, where about 60 percent of high school students participate in some type of apprenticeship program.
Between 50 percent and 60 percent of German apprenticeships each year lead to permanent jobs for the students, according to a brief from the Federal Reserve’s Fifth District Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond in 2014.
However, the Labor Department under the Obama administration has stepped upits sup-port of apprenticeship programs, said Angela Hanks, associate director for Workforce Development Policy at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank.
“Apprenticeships were in a period of decline for a while, but we have seen more policymakers recognize that it is something that is effective but is somewhat ignored in the past,” Hanks said.
President Barack Obama’s 2017 budget, released last week, includes adding $2 billion for apprenticeship programs, with about $200 million of that going toward youth apprenticeships. The administration has said its goal is to double the number of apprenticeships in the United States with the new funding.
While apprenticeships have been well-used by American trade unions in the past, other industries are now looking at apprenticeship-type programs to build their future workforces, Hanks said.
“The trades have a really had a long history of doing apprenticeships, and they really have this model down,” Hanks said. “We are now seeing more apprenticeships in manufacturing and more interest from health care and IT. There are other industries where this is possible.”