The U.S. Needs More Apprentices. Here’s Why – and How – to Start with English Learners.
Apprenticeships fill critical gaps in the U.S. workforce – particularly in essential sectors like manufacturing and construction. And they advance economic mobility in significant ways: Graduates can expect to earn an average starting salary of $80,000.
A thriving U.S. apprenticeship system powers the U.S. economy. But right now, we don’t have enough apprentices. At least 30 of every 100 skilled trade jobs are going unfilled, a gap that has created 2.4 million open manufacturing positions in the U.S. And, unless systems change, the shortage will get worse: More than a quarter of current skilled trade workers are within 10 years of retirement.
The U.S. workforce needs more apprentices. A place to start is by addressing the language barriers that keep a significant segment of the workforce from accessing these proven career pathways.
At least 1 in 10 working-age adults is an English learner, yet the U.S. workforce system serves less than 4% of the needs of these workers, meaning that 20 million potential apprentices do not yet have the English skills to participate in these programs.
Pre-apprenticeships, particularly those focused on career-aligned language upskilling, can bridge the opportunity gap. Successful programs borrow from apprenticeships’ core strengths to boost language learners’ success in two key ways:
Task-based learning: Just as apprenticeship programs teach industry-aligned skills, effective language upskilling should be approached in the same way, organizing courses around career-aligned tasks rather than abstract linguistic concepts.
On-the-job access: Apprenticeships offer working adults the opportunity to learn real-life skills as they earn living wages; language upskilling programs can similarly be deployed in workforce settings and tied to real workplace needs.
At EnGen, we’ve seen the potential of language-based pre-apprenticeships in action. ADVANCE, a workforce development group that’s part of Lake Tahoe Community College, approached us in 2021 to make its Ski Lift Maintenance Apprenticeship more accessible to immigrants, refugees, and speakers of other languages. With a local economy dependent on ski tourism and a dearth of ski workers, ADVANCE understood that building inclusive career pathways was a lifeline for its region. EnGen used National Ski Areas Association’s Lift Maintenance Training Guide to create a highly-tailored, industry-aligned language pathway that ensured language learners could access the technical language needed to advance in the apprenticeship program.
Scaling ADVANCE’s success holds promise to transform workers’ lives – and workforces – across the country. EnGen offers a growing catalog of career-aligned language pathways that serve as “off the shelf” pre-apprenticeship models for employers, workforce development orgs, and education institutions invested in building equitable pathways to apprenticeships.
Language pathway offerings like Introduction to Warehouse Machinery promote access to established apprenticeships in manufacturing, where other offerings – like phlebotomy, pharmacy technician, and certified nursing assistant – can support emerging pre-apprenticeship programs in critically understaffed sectors like healthcare.
Just as apprenticeships are an economic engine in the United States, English skills are critical workforce skills. Combining the two in language-based pre-apprenticeship models will power local economies and economic mobility.
Are you ready to get started in building a language-focused pre-apprenticeship model? To learn more about creating English onramps to apprenticeship programs, read this EnGen one-pager, “Pre-Apprenticeship Solutions for English Language Learners,” and watch this recent presentation by EnGen founder and Chief Education Officer Katie Brown.