A Study Addressing the Skills Trades Gap

The purpose of this study was to examine how placing students in youth apprenticeships can be used to impact the local skills trades gap. Placing students in youth apprenticeships impacts the local skills trades gap, and provides businesses with more skilled workers while providing a pipeline for local students. This study helps to align students' skills with local industry needs. For 20 years the trades skills gap in the United States has been widening (Management Concepts, 2021). Some of the identified skills gaps are wide-ranging deficits that impact the federal workforce at large, such as a lack of adequate training in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) skills that workers need to complete their work. A lack of STEM skills in the workforce has had a drastic impact on cybersecurity, creating the potential for huge risk across all government sectors (Management Concepts, 2021, para. 4). The U.S. skilled trades labor shortage has been heightening and in-demand jobs remain unfilled for the longest time in U.S. history (Irwin, 2021). A few examples of skilled trades people are: welders, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, machinists, chefs, and nurses. The methodology that this researcher employed in this study was to start with contacting local businesses to ask what type was needed for skilled workers in the community. When this yielded minimal results, the researcher started surveying students at the technical school to see if anyone was currently working in a skills field. From those results, this researcher was able to locate employers who were willing to hire students and students who wanted to work while they attended school. Findings indicated that there was a need for skilled workers in the surrounding communities. There were also students who were either working or wanted to work while attending school. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]