Trump to tout apprenticeships as way to fill jobs gap

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump says apprenticeships could match workers with millions of open jobs, but he's reluctant to devote more taxpayer money to the effort.

Instead, Trump and Labor Secretary Alex Acosta say the administration is focused on getting universities and private companies to pair up and pay the cost of such learn-to-earn arrangements.

The president has accepted a challenge from Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff to create 5 million apprenticeships over five years. Now, as part of a week-long apprenticeship push, he is visiting Waukesha Technical College in Wisconsin Tuesday with his daughter, Ivanka, as well as Acosta and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.

"Apprenticeships are going to be a big, big factor in our country," Trump said during his first-ever full Cabinet meeting Monday. "There are millions of good jobs that lead to great careers, jobs that do not require a four-year degree or the massive debt that often comes with those four-year degrees and even two-year degrees."

Many employers and economists – and Republicans and Democrats – welcome the idea of apprenticeships as a way to train people with specific skills for particular jobs that employers say they can't fill at time of historically low unemployment. The most recent budget for the federal government passed with about $90 million for apprenticeships, and Trump so far isn't proposing adding more.

But the Trump administration, like President Barack Obama's, says there's a need that can be met with a change in the American attitude toward vocational education and apprenticeships. A November 2016 report by Obama's Commerce Department found that "apprenticeships are not fully understood in the United States, especially" by employers, who tend to use apprentices for a few, hard-to -fill positions" but not as widely as they could.

The shortages for specifically-trained workers cut across multiple job sectors beyond Trump's beloved construction trades. There are shortages in agriculture, manufacturing, information technology and health care.