Inc. Magazine
Apprenticeships are making a strong comeback as companies struggle to find skilled entry-level workers. Unlike short-term internships, these paid, full-time roles train people while they work—helping fill gaps in fast-changing fields like tech, finance, and manufacturing. Even big names like Google and LinkedIn are using them to shape future-ready talent.
Why Apprentices Are the New Interns, and Why You Should Hire Them
Author: Kayla Webster
Employers aren’t happy with the skills—or lack thereof—their entry-level hires bring to the workplace. So they’re reviving a strategy that’s thousands of years old to find new talent: apprenticeships.
While often associated with jobs in the trades, apprenticeships are gaining traction in white-collar professions to address the skills gap created by declining birth rates and emerging technologies. Because of the in-depth training involved, these programs are well positioned to surpass internships as the primary method of imparting job skills to entry-level hires.
There are currently more than 678,000 registered apprentices in the United States, an 88.5 percent spike since 2015, according to the Office of Apprenticeship, a federal department that supports and sets the standards of these programs. With more than 7 million unfilled jobs across the nation, companies may have started building more of these programs to train workers to fill those open positions. Advanced manufacturing, financial services, education, technology, and hospitality are just a few industries with robust apprenticeship programs, according to this office.
“The thing that’s keeping the C-suite up at night—which includes HR professionals and CEOs—is talent,” says Wendi Safstrom, president of the SHRM Foundation, the nonprofit arm of the Society for Human Resource Management, an industry trade group. “Where do we find folks? And once we find them, how do we help get them up to speed in terms of how you can do your job from a technical perspective. And apprenticeship is a perfect way to instill that opportunity to learn.”
While both routes to getting entry-level employees up to speed are technically work-study programs, internships are temporary. Apprenticeships are not. Although they come in with little to no experience, apprentices are full-time employees of a company—and are thus entitled to the wages and benefits of one. With internships, there’s no guarantee the experience will lead to employment. And sometimes interns aren’t even paid for their work.
Vinz Koller, vice president of the center for apprenticeship and work-based learning at Jobs for the Future (JFF), a national nonprofit that helps create apprenticeship programs, says “being fully trained into a position” through apprenticeships gives participants a “better leg up into success” than internships because the relationship with the employer is “so strong.” In 2023, the Washington D.C.-based nonprofit celebrated its 40th anniversary and set a goal that “by 2033, 75 million people facing barriers to economic advancement will work in quality jobs,” JFF’s website says.
With skepticism growing over the value of a college degree, students want access to programs that both prepare them for the workforce, and guarantee a job. However, Krysti Specht, director of the center for apprenticeship and work-based learning at JFF, notes that what college students learn in class “isn’t always aligned with what an employer says they need.” With that classroom-workplace disconnect to consider, along with the high price tag of a college education, Koller says young people are rethinking the “return on investment” of a traditional college education and internship.
“Would you choose to spend $50,000 on your education, or would you rather make $20,000 while you’re being educated,” Koller says. “That’s pretty easy if you ask an 18-year-old, or even a 16-year-old, that question.”
Specht acknowledges that large companies have an easier time attracting apprentices because they can offer higher wages. But there are programs that can help current apprentices in new and emerging industries finish their programs. Last week, JFF and Google.org—the search engine’s philanthropic arm—launched the National Apprentice Fund to help U.S. apprentices going through financial hardship. The $2 million fund will be distributed to 750 registered apprentices with a demonstrated need.
Beyond the fields mentioned by the federal apprenticeship office, large tech companies like Google, AirBnB, and LinkedIn are also using similar programs. Many of these programs, especially in tech, are highly competitive due to overwhelming demand and limited positions.
“When large tech puts their application online, oftentimes it gets so many applications they take it down within 24 to 48 hours because they get so many applications so fast—that’s the level of interest in getting these types of opportunities,” Specht says.
The exciting part, Specht says, is that many of these apprenticeships were created to prepare workers for jobs that don’t even exist yet, thanks to new technology like AI. As an HR professional at SHRM, Safstrom notes that many jobs will, or already have, changed due to AI—apprenticeships can also be used as an opportunity to upskill existing workers, or people returning to the workforce after taking a career gap.
“I think things have changed so quickly and are ever changing,” Safstrom says. “What you may have majored in or learned 20 years ago, that job or those skills have changed dramatically, and in an effort to continue to be able to earn and learn, this is a great solution to address that.”
Back in 2021, Chicago music teacher and professional violinist Javier Orman went through LinkedIn’s AI apprenticeship program. Orman discovered his interest in AI when the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted the music industry. After completing the apprenticeship, Orman was promoted to AI engineer at LinkedIn the following year.
“Javier’s story shows how the right opportunity can empower individuals to pivot careers and significantly contribute to the tech industry,” Shalini Agarwal, LinkedIn’s senior director of engineering and apprenticeship lead, says.
Startups and small businesses have a lot to gain by implementing apprenticeship programs too, Koller says. Having trainees built into their workforce will create a “vertical integration” of talent—a source that will prove invaluable in businesses that tend to suffer from high turnover.
“There’s a really high level of loyalty that comes with apprenticeships; more than 70 percent of apprentices stay because this is the company that trained and built them,” Specht says.
Credits: TCA, LLC.