Recently, a colleague shared with me the Urban Institute's March 2009 report, "The Benefits and Challenges of Registered Apprenticeship: The Sponsors' Perspective," which was commissioned by ETA. I hadn't stumbled across it before, and was glad to find it.  It offers a great illustration of the many benefits of Registered Apprenticeship - from the credible perspective of actual program sponsors - and, perhaps more importantly, offers insight into key opportunities the public workforce system has to engage with and support Registered Apprenticeship programs.

Some key findings from the report:

• Registered Apprenticeship enjoys strong support from program sponsors - nearly 9 out of 10 sponsors would strongly recommend Registered Apprenticeship to others.
• Program completion rates reported by sponsors were very high.
• Sponsors most often use current employees to recruit new apprentices, with the second most cited recruitment source being community colleges and public technical schools.  Interestingly, the One-Stop Career Center system, along with unions, were the least cited recruitment source.
• Sponsors' interactions with the public workforce system were quite limited.  While nearly 30 percent of sponsors said that they had had at least one interaction with the system, only 17 percent reported that they had used a One-Stop to post apprenticeship openings and only 16 percent reported that they they had received applicants referred by the workforce system.
  
• At the same time, many sponsors indicated that they need help in finding and screening applicants.

These findings tell me that those of us in the workforce system have a real opportunity to improve our outreach to and engagement with Registered Apprenticeship programs, and to fill a critical recruitment and screening gap - a key component of our core business!

If you haven't yet read the report, you can access it here.  I think it makes a compelling case for the strengths and successes of Registered Apprenticeship programs, and really demonstrates why Registered Apprenticeship should be leveraged as a key talent development strategy within the public workforce system.