Why Tech Companies Should Offer Apprenticeships

This National Apprenticeship Week, I’m excited to announce CTA’s most recent white paper, “Why Tech Companies Should Offer Apprenticeships.”

The tech sector is the fastest-growing sector of our nation’s economy – responsible for 12% of U.S. GDP – but America desperately needs more tech workers. In November 2019, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 5.8 million Americans were unemployed, but seven million U.S. jobs remained unfilled.  

Apprenticeships are a great way to source talent for these open positions.

According to a recent CTA Future of Work Survey, tech companies are having a hard time finding qualified workers to fill jobs in cybersecurity, data analytics, software engineering and other areas. With an estimated eight million new American jobs opening by 2023, companies must deploy additional recruiting strategies – beyond recruiting out of higher education institutions – to fill those positions.  

At CTA, we are committed to preparing and maintaining a skilled workforce, and our member companies are investing in upskilling workers and finding new ways to attract talented candidates. In January, we launched the CTA Apprenticeship Coalition, a collaborative effort by more than 40 CTA member companies including IBM, Amazon, Bosch, Postmates and Sony to create and scale apprenticeships around the country. As an industry, we are growing the number of apprenticeships in the U.S. – but we still need more companies to invest in this talent pipeline approach within their businesses.

I hope this white paper will inspire you to consider building, growing or hiring from an apprenticeship program so we can maintain our role as the global leader in innovation and in solving present and future workforce challenges.