The Director’s Chair

GREETINGS FROM OUR neck of the frozen Southland. We at Apprenticely hope this month’s newsletter finds all of you well and warm and your new year off to a good start.

On our end, we’re excited to be celebrating, and participating in, the January 28 kickoff of the American Manufacturing Apprenticeship Incentive Fund (AMAIF), a $35.8 million federal effort to increase the number of manufacturing-sector Registered Apprenticeships across the country. The U.S. Department of Labor selected the State of Arkansas to administer this fund, which launched with 120 different advanced manufacturing occupations (additional occupations will likely be added along the way). The only caveat is that these apprenticeable occupations are “on the floor” jobs and don’t include administrative positions.

The Arkansas Workforce Connections, Office of Skills Development (OSD) is administering the grant, and any sponsor with the DOL, be it an individual employer or an intermediary like Apprenticely, can apply. And OSD has made it pretty simple—all you need to submit is the name of the employer of record, the apprenticeable occupation being applied for, the number of apprenticeships, and the number of employees that employer has in total. This is a six-month pilot phase during which AMAIF will approve up to 10 employers and 100 apprentices. The program could go up to four years, unless the funds are all allotted before then.

Arkansans can and should be proud of the fact that the DOL chose our state to administer this important new workforce resource. Clearly, our state’s track record of expanding the apprenticeship pathway across different sectors has been noticed, and here at Apprenticely we’ve proven that we know how to scale the required administrative support.

For the past couple of weeks, Apprenticely has been hosting AMAIF webinars to explain how all this will work, and we’ve had an increasingly good turnout. Whether you did or didn’t tune in to the webinars, if you’d like to know more about this great new opportunity for both employers and potential job candidates, please contact Apprenticely (www.apprenticely.org/manufacturing) and let us help get you involved.

–Bill Yoder
Executive Director