I started my construction career in 1979 as an IBEW apprentice, taking a bus one hour each way to work at the Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant. That decision to enter the Phoenix Electrical JATC became the most impactful career move I ever made, launching a 45-year journey that took me from apprentice to CEO of Rosendin Electric Inc., one of America’s largest employee-owned electrical contractors.
That story matters to what I’m about to say. This labor crisis has been building for more than 15 years and, as an industry, we have struggled to find a meaningful strategy to address it.
Right now, the industry is staring at a 456,000-worker shortage that needs to be filled by 2027, while 41% of today’s skilled workforce is expected to retire within the next decade, according to Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) and National Center for Construction Education and Research (NCCER).
For the first time in a decade, the number of registered apprentices in the U.S. has declined, according to Homepros. That number arrives just as the current administration has set a goal of 1 million new apprentices by 2027, backed by the START Act (S. 4409, 119th Congress), which would require the Department of Labor to issue final determinations for apprenticeship applications within 90 days and invest $150 million in annual state formula grants.
The intent behind those efforts is right, and faster timelines genuinely benefit prospective sponsors. At the same time, any framework that accelerates program creation without reinforcing quality standards is worth examining carefully, because a numerical goal without context, a plan or a support system behind it does not automatically translate to a skilled workforce.
Part of the solution may involve policy, but the more pressing challenge runs deeper than how many programs are registered or how quickly they can be approved. The industry’s own culture is pushing people out the door before they ever get the chance to build a career.
The Trades Have a Culture Problem Right Now
The construction industry’s turnover rate runs roughly 68% higher than most other industries, according to Associated Builders and Contractors. For every five journeymen who retire, only two apprentices enter the field, according to “Bring Back the Trades” in the National Review.
The volume of overtime combined with the wage incentives that used to drive productivity, now pulls young workers in fast and burns them out faster. These physical and emotional demands contribute to documented mental health challenges among workers across the trades.
The generational divide makes it worse. With shop classes nearly gone from K-12 education, many young people step onto a job site with no prior exposure to skilled work at all. Not every journeyman belongs in a mentorship role and placing the wrong one in that position can end a promising career before it ever finds its footing.
When contractors assign mentors based on availability rather than a genuine aptitude for teaching, that decision shows up directly in turnover numbers and rarely gets traced back to its source.
The ART Framework: A Practical Strategy That Works
We have to start a whole new process. That process is what I call the ART strategy: Attract, Retain and Transfer knowledge.
Attract starts younger than most contractors expect. Career opinions form as early as sixth grade, and by the time a student reaches senior year, the window is nearly closed. I’ve spoken with nearly a thousand students in the past year alone and what strikes me every time is how few have ever heard the phrase “registered apprenticeship” used in any meaningful way.
At one high school, the counselors came into the afternoon session because they had never seen the national apprenticeship registry either. We have conditioned an entire generation to equate success with a four-year degree, leaving a career path that leads directly to $60,000 to $80,000, debt-free, virtually invisible to the students who need it most.
Contractors who sponsor career days and invest in relationships with shop teachers are already ahead, because they are reaching students before the four-year college narrative takes hold.
The message to parents practically makes itself: a registered apprenticeship pays young people to build a rewarding, debt-free career starting on day one.
Retain means treating apprentices like what they actually are: future foremen, project managers, and the next CEOs. Laying out a clear career pathway before an apprentice ever steps on a job site is one of the most effective retention tools a contractor has.
Mentor selection matters just as much as recruitment, because one great mentor can do more to keep a promising apprentice in the field than any wage incentive or program requirement. This is also a workforce that grew up on technology, and integrating digital tools and AI-assisted training platforms signals that the trades are a modern, forward-thinking career worth pursuing.
Apprentice progress deserves the same disciplined tracking applied to any critical project metric. According to research from Mathematica and the Department of Labor, registered apprenticeships raise employment rates by 8 to 9 percentage points in two years and increase annual earnings by approximately $6,000. Those numbers alone make the case.
Transfer is the heartbeat of this industry. Rotating apprentices through different crews and project types multiplies their exposure and broadens their skills. Pairing that experience with vendor-led hands-on programs and technology-assisted learning expands knowledge transfer capacity across the entire crew.
None of it replaces the personal mentoring relationship that makes apprenticeships work. It builds on it.
This Industry Built My Career. Now Let’s Build Theirs.
I currently sit on the Arizona State Apprenticeship Advisory Board, where we advise the state on what we are seeing in industry and reach out to employers to help them establish programs. The Greenawalt Foundation is here to help, but achieving one million new apprentices will require a real strategy, not just an ambitious headline.
Investing in workforce development means more than writing a check. It means leadership showing up at apprenticeship program meetings, sitting on advisory boards and actively building the pipelines that supply the next generation of skilled workers.
The students who will address the 10-year labor shortage are in sixth and seventh grade today. Any strategy targeting workers already near the workforce is a stopgap. A strategy built around those students produces results in time to actually matter.
This industry built my career. Now it is time for the industry to build the next generation’s career with the same commitment, and that starts with treating apprenticeship not as an obligation, but as the strategic investment it has always been.
Mike Greenawalt is founder and Chief Visionary Officer for the Greenawalt Foundation, which creates pathways to prosperity by providing the opportunity to access education, training and support for individuals pursuing careers in the skilled trades.
