Dive Brief:

• A study carried out by the Workforce Strategies Initiative at The Aspen Institute looked at completion and dropout rates among apprentice roofers, painters, laborers, carpenters, electricians, sheet metal workers, operating engineers, painters, glaziers, and drywall and ceiling tile installers.
• Good data was hard to come by, but anecdotal reports said that it was too often impossible for apprentices to meet financial obligations when they could not be confident of getting consistent work.
• The study also found that apprentices who began between ages 25 and 34 completed the programs at a higher rate than apprentices fresh from high school.

Dive Insight:

The financial disincentives to successfully completing an apprenticeship program led the study authors to recommend that the government support apprenticeship programs and that it get infrastructure work back in gear so there will be jobs for apprentices as well as journeyman members of the construction trades. The study also found it hard to get measurable data on why people drop out of apprenticeship programs.