Apprenticeship programs: Getting paid to learn

Manufacturing apprenticeships provide a solid link between industry and education that is so desperately needed.

Apprenticeship program—a normal part of growing up in much of Europe, a relative rarity in the U.S.—recently received a well-deserved boost in positive press. Vox described what many in metal fabrication have known for years: that this is a new age of manufacturing, that workers need a mix of technical skills, and that factory work isn’t as dangerous and dirty as it once was.

The FABRICATOR has covered apprenticeship programs before, including one cover story several years ago about a program at a North Carolina metal manufacturer. It’s just one example of how fabricators have ramped up their in-house training programs. The whole idea is simple: Sure, in an ideal world, schools would churn out a plethora of quality candidates, but they don’t, so fabricators have no choice but to step up and provide training. And there’s always a risk that trained workers could jump ship, but what choice do fabricators have? Besides, high turnover of good, freshly trained entry-level workers may point to other workplace problems.

Even if schools did churn out qualified worker after qualified worker, I still think apprenticeships and other in-house training programs would be vital. When I talk to technical school teachers, they all tell me the same thing: Even the best school programs can prepare people only to a certain level. The best employers in manufacturing bring entry level workers to the next level through robust in-house training.

What sets apprenticeship programs apart is that they provide a solid link between industry and education that we so desperately need. There’s nothing quite like the experience of producing products that will actually be sold and used. Most significant, the apprenticeship provides a good transition from the “education world” to the “real world.”

Many in previous generations went to college to, in effect, learn to think. Chris Kuehl, economic analyst for the Fabricators & Manufacturers Association Intl., has said as much at several FMA events. In a previous life, Kuehl was a professor of economics and, as such, sometimes advised students that the major they chose wasn’t all that important. They were in college to learn to think.

This promoted the idea of the “college experience,” one that was very much different than the rest of life. Sure, they learned to think, travel, and do, well, other things, but after college they could bounce around and find a job that fit, depending on where the winds of life took them. Times were different. The U.S. had fewer college graduates overall, and there was a kind of romanticized decoupling between college life and real life. it’s one that now really doesn’t add value to much of the U.S. economy.

Kuehl has conceded that he wouldn’t tell college advisees today that their major doesn’t matter. Industry needs people with direction, purpose, those who can absorb new technologies while appreciating and learning the intricacies of established methods. Apprenticeship, co-ops, internships that involve more than getting coffee—all of these methods and more can help people build the direction and purpose that industry needs.