The need to make registered apprenticeships more equitable

Report: Findings from Jobs for the Future – JFF suggest creating greater access for youth apprentices

September 13, 2022

Registered apprenticeships allow employers to train a new generation of workers. Da t a regarding registered apprenticeships is positive. About 93% of those who complete their apprenticeships gain employment earning an average annual wage of $77,000. And the current administration recently announced the Apprenticeship Ambassador Initiative – a national network of more than 200 stakeholders committed to boosting and diversifying registered apprenticeships.

But according to a new report – The Current State of Diversity and Equity in U.S. Apprenticeships for Young People – there are still significant equity gaps. The just-released report comes from the Center for Apprenticeship and Work-Based Learning, part of Jobs for the Future – JFF. The findings are the result of analyzing data regarding young apprentices, ages 16 to 24, from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Registered Apprenticeship Partners Information Database System (RAPIDS).

Highlights include:

Between 2010 and 2020, the number of youth apprentices grew 113% from 18,877 to 40,293.
On average between 2010 and 2020, 35% of youth apprentices identified as nonwhite while 63% identified as white.
Of the nonwhite apprentices, the largest percentages identified as Hispanic at 21% and Black at 8%.
Between 2010 and 2020, women accounted for just over 7% of all youth apprentices, while men made up just under 93% of the pool.

The report states, “Increasing diversity and equity in apprenticeship will require intentional action on a systemic level as well as within apprenticeship programs themselves.”

It continues, “When employers tap into a broader swath of talent, they often see positive return on investment via healthier bottom lines and greater innovation, thanks to the wide range of backgrounds and experiences these apprentices bring to the job.”

Additionally, the Center for Apprenticeship and Work-Based Learning offers a framework for diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) in registered apprenticeship.

You can read the full report here.

You can read about JFF’s DEIA framework here.

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Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.