Amid labor shortages, companies are turning to an old model for developing new talent: apprenticeships. ( Courtesy of Florida Times-Union )
Thomas Nadeau, 20, of Jacksonville, wanted to get into a trade in Florida and decided Snyder Air Conditioning, Plumbing & Electric would be a good step for his career.
Nadeau said most Floridians’ almost year-round need for AC sold him on the field and job longevity.
“I always knew about Snyder — born and raised here so I’ve always been watching the commercials on TV,” he said. “I’m trying to learn as much as possible.”
Nadeau started his yearlong apprenticeship the third week of April. He said he has class two days of the week, during which he does modules on diagnosing systems for about four hours before doing maintenance calls the rest of the time.
Paid apprenticeships are similar to paid internships for certain career fields, said Doreen Lund, apprenticeship navigator for CareerSource Northeast Florida.
Florida is promoting apprenticeships in general, Lund said, and focusing on a variety of industries — for example, hospitality or health care. This year the programs were granted $15 million to increase apprenticeships, compared to the $10 million in funding in previous years.
Some of these new opportunities include ACI Learning, a cybersecurity and tech support specialist program; Flagler Health+, a surgical technologist apprenticeship that’s the first of its kind in Northeast Florida; Northeast Florida Builders Association, which had 417 apprentices start recently as the largest cohort in years; and Independent Electrical Contractors, which just added its sixth in-person class at MetroPower in Jacksonville.
“We are looking at a trucking one that has passed and might start in another month or so,” Lund said. “We’re trying to broaden the industries so people can learn things in new fields without having that college debt.”
Lund said registered apprenticeships “all pay because they are jobs.”
People don’t need anything higher than a high school diploma or a GED to be candidates for these apprenticeships.
“People write to me asking for help to find these kinds of jobs because it’s hard for them to leave a role and go back to school if they have bills or children,” Lund said.
Nursing will be another apprenticeship opportunity soon. This is typically a field which requires students to be in school full-time for years, but now apprentices will have the opportunity to make money while training rather than losing income and having to pay for school.
Nadeau said there are many technical schools which he could spend money to learn from, but not very many which would pay him to get trained.
“You can only do so much bookwork and hands-on work and that only takes you so far,” he said. “Here you can do a lot of on-the-job experience, which I believe takes you a long way.”
The goal for the apprenticeship program is to start out as a maintenance technician, Nadeau said, and to get moved up to service technician through the training program.
Lund said apprenticeships are beneficial for employers because it’s difficult to find talent sometimes, so this is an opportunity for those workforces to build skilled labor, and for employees who want to learn a skill and advance in an industry without the burden of student loan debt.
CareerSource is involved in the process from coordinating with employers who to start and fund these apprenticeships to helping apprentices find a good fit for what they want out of their lives and careers.
“Our goal is to upskill our community,” Lund said. “We want to be able to help monetarily if an employer is implementing a good training program. We’re helping Flagler with their training, we’re helping Snyder with theirs. We’re helping to subsidize whatever training they need to add with grants. We can also help with the recruitment.”
Lund noted that employers who set a bachelor’s degree as a requirement for job applicants, are cutting out about 70% of the possible workforce. To open the employment pool to those who have only a high school diploma and offer the necessary training is to diversify the workplace, she said. “You just have to put in the work and learn as much as you can,” Nadeau said. “It all starts by putting your foot in the door. It’s a great trade to get into.”