Executive Order 13801: Apprenticeships

What the Executive Order Says

Executive Order (EO) 13801 is entitled "Expanding Apprenticeships in America" and was issued on June 15, 2017.  This EO has 11 sections.  Skills of workers is a very important topic currently since the rate of technological change is unprecedented and unrelenting.  Increasingly, automation is reducing the number of jobs and for those jobs that remain, the work itself is different and requires computer skills.

Section 1

This section lays out the purpose of the EO, but it also speaks to the administration's policy.  There is an emphasis to change what has been done in the past because it has been ineffective.  The measure of success seems to be whether retrained workers find further employment.  This makes sense, but if the jobs move to a different place, then ultimately the people have to move as well.

Section 2

This section summarizes the administration's policy into a single sentence.  A couple of things seem to pop out of the statement, first, there seems to be an assumption that the trainees will bear the burden of some of the cost.  Since most people will not have a pile of cash in their back pocket for paying for retraining, then it means that people will have to take on debt to finance such retraining.
Second, it mentions easing the regulatory burden on such programs.  This potentially means a roll back in consumer and worker protections for apprenticeship and retraining enrollees.  The fine print in the rule-making will be critical.

Section 3

This defines what an apprenticeship and a job training program are.

Section 4

This section directs the Secretary of Labor to initiate rule-making aimed at promoting the development of apprenticeship programs by third parties.  Here it becomes a question of figuring out what third parties would find sufficiently attractive to have an apprentice work at a job.

Section 5

This section directs the Secretary of Labor to focus spending on apprenticeships towards students at secondary and post-secondary schools.  I think this is completely misdirected.  Frankly, the real problem that everyone keeps talking about is older workers losing their jobs as a result of closure of manufacturing plants.  Retraining of these workers so that they have skills that can be used in other industries which are growing rather than shrinking should be the focus.

Section 6

This section directs that various cabinet members promote apprenticeships.  Both for people who might need retraining as well as the companies that ultimately will provide the apprentice positions that trainees will fill with the hope that at the end of it, they will have a permanent job.

Section 7

This section directs the Secretary of Education to promote apprenticeships at colleges and universities.  This is symptomatic of the anti-intellectualism of this administration and as mentioned above, I believe it is the wrong place to focus.

Section 8

This section creates a Task Force that is to write a report with recommendations that would promote the creation and use of apprenticeship positions.  This task force include the Secretaries of Labor, Commerce and Education and up to 20 others as appointed.  Note that per (g), the attendance to meetings of the Task Force can be delegated to others.  The budget comes from the Department of Labor.  Subsection (e) is interesting and seems to be part of a recent trend wherein the President is delegating his functions or responsibilities increasingly frequently to others (typically cabinet members).

Section 9

This section sets up an awards program to recognize good apprenticeship programs.

Section 10

Finally, the EO is calling for reports to be generated to identify what programs already exist.  The Director of the OMB is directed to create a scoring matrix that will fulfill the concern that programs need to be effective.  The deadline given is the development of the President's FY 2019 Budget which will be released in early 2018.

Section 11

This has the usual legal fine print necessary to assure that the EO is constitutional.

My Commentary

First, I would be really surprised if apprenticeships and re-training has not previously been considered so presenting this as if it was the first time is misleading.  Second, who provides training and how to measure value are valid questions and if the scoring is done in an unbiased and scientific way, that would help.  Finally, I think that the focus on who should get apprenticeships and retraining needs to be focused on older displaced workers and not on young high school and university students.