Registered apprenticeships may be very effective at delivering living wages, particularly apprenticeships in joint labor-management programs run cooperatively by unions and employers, according to a white paper prepared by a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a member of the Illinois Economic Policy Institute.
The report, which was prepared for the U.S. Department of Labor Chief Evaluation Office, defined living wages as “the earnings required to pay for minimum basic needs, including food, housing, transportation, clothing, and other essentials.
The white paper studied apprenticeships between 2019 and 2022, which had 2.8 million participants in total. Joint labor-management programs trained 59% of those apprentices, while employer-only programs trained 41%. The union programs had a higher completion rate at 61%.
Overall, the study noted that registered apprenticeships are a key way to deliver living wages, particularly to construction apprentices. Comparing starting and ending wages of the apprenticeship programs, researchers found that only 35% of apprentices could pay for a modest two-bedroom apartment at the beginning of their apprenticeship, while 74% could pay for the same accommodations by the end of the apprenticeship.
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Source : https://www.hrdive.com/news/registered-apprenticeships-may-help-workers-access-living-wages/738513/