A goal of 5 million apprenticeships in the next five years is very lofty considering last year 505,000 people held apprenticeships.
A lofty goal was set in March of 2017 when Marc Benioff, Salesforce CEO, asked President Trump to up the ante and create 5 million apprenticeships in the next five years.
Trump took the bait and included it in his workforce agenda.
While the U.S. might be on the right path, there is a long way to go from the 505,000 people that held apprenticeships last year. (Only 35% of those apprenticeships were in manufacturing.)
But hope springs eternal in the U.S. psyche and so there are studies that predict if only we could reach the same share of its workforce as Australia, Canada and England, the number of apprenticeships would reach 4 million. This is the belief held by Robert I. Lerman, an institute fellow at Urban Institute.
