Youth Apprenticeship in the United States: Apprenticeship Evidence Building Portfolio

Many U.S. youth apprenticeship programs are unregistered. YARG funds only support registered apprenticeship programs. To ensure clarity regarding such distinctions, this report begins by defining apprenticeship training models (i.e., registered apprenticeship program, unregistered apprenticeship program, pre-apprenticeship program, youth apprenticeship program). Once defined, these terms assist the authors in describing the state of youth apprenticeship in the United States to provide context for the implementation evaluation of YARG programs, identifying trends in youth participation in registered apprenticeship in the United States, and describing existing statewide youth apprenticeship systems. The report concludes with a description of the organization and partnerships of the 14 Youth Apprenticeship Readiness grantees awarded in June 2020.

The report’s major findings include:

1. Youth apprentices are relatively common in the registered apprenticeship system, comprising between 30 to 40 percent of all registered apprentices in any given year
2. A much smaller share of apprentices are between the ages of 16 and 18 (e.g., 2.7 percent registered in 2021)
3. A similarly small share of youth apprentices were registered in youth apprenticeship programs that exclusively serve youth ages 24 or younger in 2021 (i.e., 3.5 percent)
4. Analysis of Registered Apprenticeship Partners Information Data System (RAPIDS) data shows that the Youth Apprenticeship Readiness Grants seek to build on what is currently a relatively small and disorganized youth apprenticeship system
5. The number of youth ages 16 to 24 registered as apprentices and entered into the RAPIDS database has grown steadily over time (i.e., over 76,000 in 1996 to almost 214,000 in 2021)
6. North Carolina had the most active registered apprentices in youth apprenticeship programs in 2021 (i.e., 1,082)
7. Eight of the nine Partnership to Advance Youth Apprenticeship grantees are focused on expanding youth apprenticeships in multiple industries or occupations, and only one grantee (i.e., Early Care & Education Youth Apprenticeship) operates in a single industry
8. Of the 14 Youth Apprenticeship Readiness grantees, 11 operated within a single state, with 3 grantees restricting activities to specific counties in a state
9. Grantees with fewer named partners tended to have lower apprentice targets and reported that they would take on many traditional partner roles themselves.

This report recommends further evaluation that:

1. Documents how grantees’ strategies for recruiting, supporting, and retaining younger youth apprentices (ages 16 to 18) differ from strategies for recruiting, supporting, and retaining older youth apprentices (ages 19 to 24)
2. Documents the extent to which grantees develop and expand programs serving youth apprentices and how developing and expanding those programs differs from expanding adult apprenticeship programs that enroll some youth apprentices
3. Examines the extent to which grantees register previously unregistered youth apprenticeship programs to understand how those efforts differ from developing new registered youth apprenticeship programs
4. Carefully tracks and describes grantee partnerships and documents potentially promising or innovative partnership models that support registered youth apprenticeship programs

• Last Updated:
• Created:
• Resource Publication Date: 2023
• Author(s): Kueh, D.; Payne, J.; Trutko, J.; and Trutko, A.
• Funding Source: U.S. Department of Labor
• Resource Availability: Publicly available
• Posted by: Justin Venneri
• Posted in: Workforce System Strategies