Bill Aimed At Bringing More Young People Into Apprenticeship Programs Assigned Subcommittees

A bill aimed at bringing more young people into apprenticeship programs was assigned to several subcommittees on Monday.

Assembly Bill 296, authored by Assemblywoman Laurie Davies (R-Laguna Niguel), would change current law which requires a school district or school to notify each apprenticeship program in the same county as the school district or school of a career or college fair it is planning to hold. Instead, AB 296 will make it so that school districts and schools would be required to host at least one apprenticeship fair event during each school year. In addition, for school districts that require community service hours as a requirement for graduation from high school, the bill would have students receive one hour credited to such a service requirement if they attend a college fair, career fair, or apprenticeship fair.

Since the beginning of the decade, the state has focused more and more on post-graduate education options for students. While this does include universities and community colleges, a big push has been made towards apprenticeships. Since 2014, the number of new apprenticeship opportunities has gone up by 40%, with many construction and contractor firms sponsoring them to bring back more young people into trades and to avoid a massive trade worker deficit that has been projected to grow exponentially in the next ten years.

“We, as a country, have been aware of this growing gap for quite some time,” explained trade worker job coordinator Fritz Hauser to the Globe on Tuesday. “For years and years and years, the focus for students was college. And that is great. More education meant more opportunities. But it also meant more younger people not entering the trades. Plumbers, carpenters, electricians, welders. That sort of thing. College degrees were your ticket to a higher paying job, with jobs requiring degrees seen as better and a lot less labor intensive..

“Apprenticeship programs, as a result, were on the downswing. And current skilled laborers were aging out fast. That’s why we have a lot of scary statistics nowadays, like the U.S. being behind in the number of needed plumbers by about 550,000 by 2027. Or the number of electricians going down by about 3,000 per year despite demand rising each year more and more.

“California is actually doing better than most states in having enough skilled workers. But there is still a shortage, and it is expected to grow. Right now, there is a huge need for apprentices. Trades are paying better and better, and Gen Z is going more and more into trade schools and apprenticeships. So all these new laws California is making to increase apprenticeships and non-college pathways to a career, you know, it makes total sense.”

A bill aimed at apprenticeships

In the past few years, multiple bills have been signed into law to increase the number of apprenticeship opportunities for students in California. Most notably, this resulted in the passing and signing of AB 643 in 2021. That bill resulted in apprenticeship programs required to be notified of all upcoming college and career fairs so that more students and job seekers could look into apprentice-based jobs like those in the trades.

However, with trade position shortages still growing and the need for more workers jumping recently with the recent Southern California wildfires creating thousands of unplanned new construction projects, the need for more apprenticeship programs has been critical. AB 296 was only the most recent bill to come out of this need.

The bill was introduced last month, with the main question heading into February being just how many subcommittees AB 296 would be assigned. This was answered on Monday, with the bill now expected to be heard and voted on in both the Labor and Employment Committee and the Education Committee in the coming months.

Currently, AB 296 has no known opposition. Based on previous vote totals for apprenticeship-related bills, it also looks likely that AB 296 will move up through both houses quite easily. But, even if passed, experts have said that more bills promoting apprenticeships and trade schools as a college alternatives are likely to come in the next few years.

“AB 296 was not the first and is by no means the last,” added Hauser. “California is still playing catch up in getting more young people into apprenticeships. And we’ll need them.”