Economy

Why Apprenticeships Are Taking Off

Employers need skilled workers; young people want a path to a good job without accruing lots of debt.
Tanner Greeson, an apprentice electrician in Portland Oregon Department of Transportation/Flickr

This article is the first in a three-part series on apprenticeship in the United States.

Twenty years ago, a manufacturing worker might have operated a machine on a factory floor. Today, that worker would need to understand not only how to operate the machine, but also how to program and maintain it. Similarly, many health care workers, such as medical coders and health information managers, now need to know IT as well as the basics of medicine.