The U.S. Department of Labor announced Tuesday that they will partner with the White House and the U.S. Department of Commerce to establish a 120-Day Cybersecurity Apprenticeship Sprint. The program aims to help fill the vacancies of 700,000 jobs across the cyber industry and promote diversity in the field. (Courtesy of sdxcentral.com).
Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh and Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo introduced the initiative at the White House National Cyber Workforce and Education Summit this week.
The program will promote the use of current Registered Apprenticeships — programs within the Department of Labor that weld job seekers looking to learn new skills with employers looking for qualified workers.
These programs are essential in attracting, training, and retaining a diverse cybersecurity workforce. The sprint will carve a new direction for workers in cybersecurity through “partnerships with K-12, higher education, workforce partners, and training programs,” according to the Department of Labor.
“Right now, we have hundreds of thousands of critical cybersecurity jobs open, and Registered Apprenticeships are key to training new workers and connecting them to these opportunities,” Raimondo said. “The Cybersecurity Apprenticeship Sprint will help build employer-led partnerships that will meet the industry’s need for talent and allow Americans to access quality, high-paying jobs.”
The initiative follows the Biden-Harris administration’s commitment to expanding Registered Apprenticeships. There has been a 28% increase in apprenticeship programs since Jan 20, 2021, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. There are currently over 700 Registered Apprenticeship programs.
While the sprint intends to improve access to and increase the number of cybersecurity workers — there is also a need to target underrepresented communities, “especially women, people of color, veterans, and people with disabilities,” said Walsh. “These newly trained workers will help protect our critical infrastructure, advance our digital way of life, [and] strengthen our economy.”
An Uphill Climb
Top-hats in the industry admit the initiative should go further and target the younger generation to accelerate interest in the cyber field.
“While the Apprenticeship program is a step in the right direction, the government can assist further with the cyber talent gap by increasing support and funding for programs that promote cybersecurity in high schools, provide scholarships in college, and cybersecurity trade programs,” said Arctic Wolf CEO Nick Schneider. “Or even creating an extended cyber ‘peace corps’ in which the government would pay for training after which the recipient would give years of service providing free expertise to organizations around the country.”
In further strides, the government can also look for opportunities in vocational schools to address the skills gap.
Of the hundreds of thousands of cyber-field job vacancies, many are “vocational in nature and could be filled by those with the appropriate level of training,” wrote Sounil Yu, Chief Information Security Officer at JupiterOne, via email. “By immersing themselves in a particular field, like cybersecurity, students practice tangible skills they will need and can apply to the workplace.”
“By reexamining some of our traditional cybersecurity roles through the lens of vocational opportunities, we can build a more robust and adaptive workforce that can better defend against today’s complex cybersecurity threats,” Yu concluded.
The sprint will continue until the National Apprenticeship Week commences on November 14 – 20 later this year, according to the Department of Labor. Until then, the department encourages employers, industry associations, labor unions, and training providers to recognize registered apprenticeships as a recruitment, training, and retention strategy tool.