President Donald Trump famously hosted NBC’s ‘The Apprentice’ to teach celebrities business acumen and now his administration is giving those same lessons to hundreds of thousands of workers.
The president signed an executive order earlier this year mandating 1 million new active apprenticeships in the US.
According to the Department of Labor (DOL), apprenticeships are structured, paid training programs that combine on-the-job learning with classroom instruction.
So far this year, the DOL has created close to 300,000 new active apprenticeships, Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-Deremer told the Daily Mail in an exclusive interview.
Many of those are for future HVAC technicians, plumbers, shipbuilders, carpenters and boilermakers. Some tech apprenticeships, like electricians, cybersecurity technicians andIT generalists, are also a major focus as the US looks to fuel its domestic AI industry.
Overall, there are currently between 750,000 and 800,000 active apprenticeships.
‘President Trump has understood the value of Registered Apprenticeships for decades, which is why he set an ambitious goal of reaching one million apprentices nationwide,’ Chavez-DeRemer told the Daily Mail in an exclusive interview.
‘I’m committed to doing everything I can to help Make America Skilled Again,’ she said.’We want everybody to understand that there’s an apprenticeship program for you.’
Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-Deremer told the Daily Mail that the Department of Labor has created close to 300,000 apprenticeships this year
New apprenticeships will prepare the US workforce for changing market labor demands, the secretary shared
Trump famously hosted NBC’s ‘The Apprentice’ for fifteen seasons
The apprenticeships come in all shapes and sizes, too, the secretary said, adding that they are expanding the program to include opportunities for sectors where apprenticeships have not typically been offered, like law enforcement and firefighting.
‘We’ve seen it in manufacturing, we’ve seen it in the trades. We’ve seen it in healthcare,’ she said. ‘We’ve had conversations with law enforcement.’
The department officials argue that apprentices can earn a mortgage-paying wage while developing their own abilities. This year, the department has added 2,300 apprenticeship programs nationally, according to an official.
The main focus of the DOL is to protect the American worker, the secretary shared.
To do this, the department has rolled out a slate of new initiatives, like H1B worker visa reform, a new AI hub to expand workers’ access to the nascent technology and partnering with the Department of Education on adult continued learning.
H1B visas are given to specialized non-citizen workers, but the program has been criticized in recent years for diminishing higher-paying jobs for US citizens and prioritizing foreign workers over domestic ones.
Project Firewall, the DOL’s new H1B visa program, already has 200 active investigations into US companies with potential violations.
The specific firms under investigation could not be shared, the secretary said.
Shane Feher, a third year apprentice from Hamill Manufacturing Company, works with the manual milling machine during the annual National Tooling & Machining Association
President Trump signed an executive order this year to create 1 million apprenticeships
But the H1B abuse carried out by some companies has been ‘egregious,’ Chavez-Deremer added.
Violations range from misleading applicants about pay to offering jobs solely to non-citizens. Another issue arises when foreign workers overstay their visas, contributing to the US’s immigration woes.
Some offenders may be ‘debarred from using the program’ if found in violation, the secretary said. ‘What we want to always protect is the American worker first and foremost.’
To do so, Chavez-Deremer has been ordering her team to brush up on AI. And while some fret over the technology replacing workers, she says Americans must get acquainted with it.
‘AI is here to stay,’ she said, adding it will ‘assist employers and employees in the next generation of greatness.’
On a recent visit to a coil manufacturer, she saw how AI-enabled machinery helped producers create more. The factory didn’t fire workers after implementing robots for hard laborinstead, it added production lines and hired more workers to oversee increased output.
‘That company reinvested those dollars. They added more lines. They took those people, and they’re managing now more production. There’s a place for being nimble, being flexible.’