Table of Contents
Executive Summary................................................................................................... 3
Impact of the Policy on King County in 1998........................................................................ 3
Is the Policy Achieving its Goals?........................................................................................ 4
Recommendations.............................................................................................................. 4
Introduction............................................................................................................... 5
Overview
of the Policy and its Implementation....................................... 6
1998 Contributing Sponsors................................................................................................. 7
Impact
of the Policy on King County in 1998............................................... 8
AOP Referrals in 1998..................................................................................................... 12
Sources of Variation......................................................................................................... 12
Is the
Policy Achieving Its Goals?................................................................... 13
Increasing the number of apprenticeship
opportunities in King County.................................. 13
Helping women and minorities gain access to these
living wage career opportunities............. 14
Developing a highly skilled, diverse workforce
capable of meeting demand for skilled labor in the region. 17
Recommendations................................................................................................... 19
Summary....................................................................................................................... 21
Appendix
1: Demographics of King County
Construction Labor Force and 1998 AOP Referrals..................................................................................................................... 24
Appendix
2: Demographics on Sponsors' Projects
& King County Construction Labor Force.............................................................................................................................. 25
Appendix
3: Summary Impact of Apprentice Utilization in King County 26
Appendix
4: Summary of City, County, Port, PFD
and Private Sponsor Qualifying Projects Activity for 1998................................................................................... 27
Appendix
5: Summary of City, Port, PFD and Private
Sponsor Qualifying Projects Activity for 1997....................................................................................................... 28
Appendix
6: Summary of City, County and Port
Qualifying Projects Activity for 1994-96....................................................................................................................................... 29
Appendix
7: Summary of Public Facilities
District Total Project, 1997-99 30
Appendix
8: Contact Information.................................................................. 31
Executive Summary
Since 1993, government agencies, unions, training providers, community-based organizations and private businesses have been working together with Port Jobs and its Apprenticeship Opportunities Project to increase apprenticeship opportunities in King County. One of the primary goals of AOP has been to help women and minorities develop the skills necessary to access liveable wage jobs. One the jobs and classroom training available through the apprenticeship system provides all interested applicants with a direct link to these job opportunities. This 1998 update is the third annual report assessing the impact of the apprenticeship policies the labor market and on construction projects throughout King County.
Since the apprenticeship utilization policy was first introduced in 1994, 193 public and private projects have been covered by the policy, totaling more than $2 billion in King County construction. More than 3,900 apprentices have worked an average of 275.8 hours each on those projects. These hours count toward the 4,000 to 10,000 hours of training apprentices must work over three to five years to complete their apprenticeships.
This study also found that:
v Apprenticeship opportunities were increased as a result of the application of the apprenticeship policy. For example, the number of hours worked by apprentices and the number of apprentices working those hours more than doubled from 1997 to 1998;
v Demand for apprentice labor has doubled from 1997 to 1998. The existing apprentice system was able to keep up with demand and as a result increase the percent of labor hours worked by apprentices on covered projects;
v The construction workforce is becoming more diverse. The share of labor hours worked by minorities has increased over previous years, although the share of labor hours worked by women has decreased slightly;
v Minority women continue to be significantly underrepresented in the apprenticeship system; and
v Apprentices referred to King County apprenticeship programs by AOP are less likely to drop out of their apprenticeship in the first year than are other apprentices in the same trades.
Impact of the Policy on King County in 1998
Since the apprenticeship policy was first introduced in 1994, 193 projects have been covered by apprenticeship goals, totaling more than $2 billion in King County construction. In 1998, projects covered by the apprenticeship policy included the Safeco Field, the Experience Music Project and Cinerama Theater, the World Trade Center, the Tolt pipeline and filtration plant, and the Cedar Hills Regional Landfill.
In 1998, 1,721 apprentices worked a total of 471,661 hours on 87 projects in King County covered by the apprentice utilization policy. This was 13.4% of all labor hours worked on those projects, an increase of 0.8% from 1997. 27.2% of those hours were worked by minorities, and 14.5% of the hours were worked by women.
In 1998, AOP referred 90 people to apprenticeships (an 18% increase over 1997) and 30 more in other family wage jobs. 49% of AOP’s placements were women and 58% of them were minorities.
Is the Policy Achieving its Goals?
The purpose of the apprentice utilization policy is threefold:
v To increase the number of apprenticeship opportunities in King County;
v To help women and minorities gain access to these living wage career opportunities; and
v To develop a highly skilled, diverse workforce capable of meeting demand for skilled labor in the region.
The policy is achieving those goals, but more work remains to be done. 1998 saw a significant increase in the number of apprenticeship opportunities in King County, with 1,721 apprentices working a total of 471,661 hours. This is more than double than the number of apprentice hours worked in 1997, and more than double the number of apprentices doing that work. Overall, minorities are gaining greater access to the living wage career opportunities provided by apprenticeship, and their access has increased each year since 1996. However, the percent of women working apprentice hours decreased in 1998 from the previous year.
Recommendations
Demand for apprentices is expected to continue to rise in 1999 and beyond. The 1998 study therefore concludes with the following recommendations:
v Increase efforts to recruit and retain women, especially minority women, into construction trades apprenticeships;
v Invest more resources in pre-apprenticeship programs;
v Focus on lowering dropout rates from apprenticeship programs, so that apprentices will stay in their programs, become skilled workers, and make a career in their construction trades;
v Keep working to make apprenticeship more attractive and accessible to a broader range of people;
v For large projects, hire one person to help contractors meet apprenticeship utilization and diversity goals.
In 1992, the Working in King County Task Force, made up of representatives of labor, business, government and community-based organizations, completed its “Working in King County” report. The study found evidence of a growth in low-wage service jobs; that employers reported difficulty finding skilled workers; and that the “new” workforce was increasingly made up of groups that had borne a disproportionate share of the region’s poverty and unemployment and faced barriers to employment. These groups included women, minorities and people with disabilities.
As a result of recommendations in the study, Port Jobs was established in 1993. Port Jobs provides a forum for employers, unions, training providers, community-based organizations and local government agencies to work together on workforce development in port-related sectors.
Also in response to those recommendations, the Port of Seattle, City of Seattle and King County adopted policies designed to increase both the supply of and demand for apprentices in the building and construction trades. They began by requiring contractors on public works and construction projects valued at $1 million or more to hire apprentices to work at least 15% of the labor hours on those projects. Each jurisdiction included requirements that women and minorities work a certain portion of those apprentice hours, ranging from 10% to 25%.
As part of this effort, government agencies, trade unions, community based organizations and employment training providers joined together to create Port Jobs’ Apprenticeship Opportunities Project (AOP). AOP’s mission is to ensure that economically disadvantaged individuals, minorities and women are competitive and successful in their application for construction apprenticeships. AOP recruits and prepares potential apprentices, and provides referral, follow-up and mentoring services to them.
In 1997 and 1998 several private developers voluntarily joined as AOP sponsors, including Vulcan Northwest (First and Goal, Experience Music Project, etc.), the Public Facilities District (Safeco Field), Pine Street Development (Pacific Place), and Starwood Hotel. All of them required their contractors to meet the apprenticeship goals, and several signed on to diversity goals for women and minorities as well.
The purpose of the apprentice utilization policy is threefold:
v To increase the number of apprenticeship opportunities in King County;
v To help women and minorities gain access to these living wage career opportunities; and
v To develop a highly skilled, diverse workforce capable of meeting demand for skilled labor in the region.
Since 1996, the Office of Port Jobs has collected data annually from each of its governmental and private sponsors to assess the impact of apprenticeship utilization policies in King County. The baseline study covered the years 1994-1996, and the second report covered 1997. This third annual report analyzes the impact of the policy in 1998. It begins with an overview of the policy, and looks at its impact on building and construction labor throughout King County. Finally, it seeks to determine whether the three goals of the policy described above are being met, and makes recommendations on how to improve apprenticeship opportunities in the future.
Overview
of the Policy
and its Implementation
Apprentice utilization policies were initially introduced as requirements in public works contracting at the Port of Seattle, City of Seattle, and on several Metro projects. King County and private developers Pine Street Development, Vulcan Northwest and Starwood Lodging signed on in 1997. The Public Facilities District, a public-private partnership that built Safeco Field baseball stadium, also signed on that year.
In an effort to contribute to the development of a well-trained, highly skilled, diverse regional workforce, participating jurisdictions required contractors on public projects valued at $1 million or more to use apprentice labor and actively recruit female and minority apprentices. In 1997 and 1998, several private developers voluntarily established goals for apprenticeship opportunities and diversity of their workforce on large construction projects. All AOP sponsors chose a goal of 15% for apprentice participation for their qualifying projects. Private sponsors have chosen a variety of diversity goals for these projects.
Table 1 shows that although sponsors’ apprentice utilization requirements are similar, there are slight variations between sponsors. All of the public developers include both a 15% apprentice utilization requirement on projects over $1 million, as well as specific goals for the participation of women and minorities. (In 1998, these diversity goals were still requirements for City, County and Port contracts.) The County apprenticeship ordinance also includes persons with disabilities and economically disadvantaged youth as a target population for apprenticeship opportunities. All private developers work to ensure that 15% of all labor hours on their projects are reserved for apprentices.
The City and County have authority to reduce or waive apprenticeship requirements for projects that are highly capital intensive and do not require much labor, or where apprentices are not available in the required trades for the construction project. The Port of Seattle includes all projects that meet the $1 million mark, no matter what their labor or capital requirements are. Some jurisdictions also have the discretion to apply goals to projects under the $1 million threshold.
All three jurisdictions, the PFD, and participating private developers require contractors to use apprentice labor from state-approved apprenticeship training programs. In 1998, all such programs in King County were sponsored by individual trade unions.
1998
Contributing Sponsors
This report covers work performed on 87 qualifying projects during 1998. Many of those contracts were actually awarded in prior years.
Port of Seattle construction includes the bulk of work on the World Trade Center and major renovations to the Sea-Tac Airport parking garage. Construction work at the City of Seattle includes several projects related to the Tolt Pipeline and Filtration plant. King County work includes continued work on the Cedar Hills Regional Landfill and a number of county road improvements. The County waived apprentice requirements on approximately four projects in 1998, all of them capital intensive projects with few labor hours.
Work in 1998 on Safeco Field, built by the Public Facilities District, and Starwood Hotel were voluntarily covered by the policy. Through Vulcan Northwest’s agreement with Port Jobs, the Cinerama, Experience Music Project and Boeing Field Hangar were also covered by the policy. As part of the new football field project, work on the new Exhibition Center was also included.
Since the apprenticeship policy was first introduced in 1994, 193 projects have been covered by apprentice utilization goals, totaling more than $2 billion in King County construction.
In 1998, 1,721 apprentices worked a total of 471,661 hours covered by apprenticeship requirements. 13.4 % of the hours worked on those projects covered were done by apprentices. The largest portion of that work was done for the Public Facilities District on Safeco Field, where 40.4% of the apprentices worked 43.4% of those labor hours.
In 1998, 27.2% of the apprentice hours were worked by minorities, and 14.5% of those hours were worked by women. The percent of minority apprentice hours varied from sponsor to sponsor, with a high of 46.7% of those hours worked by apprentices on King County projects. The percentage of women also varied, with a high of 26% of apprentices on King County projects.
The table below provides details by sponsor on the impact of apprenticeship utilization in King County.
As Table 3 shows, some sponsors were more successful at providing
apprentice training hours and diversifying their workforce in 1998 than were
others. However, looking at percentages
alone does not tell the full story; even those sponsors who did not achieve
their goals still provided significant hours of work for apprentices. For example, while King County reached more
than double its goals for minority apprentice hours, a significant achievement,
it provided only 10,706 hours of training hours to those apprentices. The Public Facilities District, with the
largest total number of labor hours, provided 52,285 training hours to minority
apprentices, five times the amount of the County.
AOP
Referrals in 1998
The Apprenticeship Opportunities Project works to increase the representation of target populations in the building and construction trades. Community-based organizations recruit participants and training providers offer pre-apprenticeship training. AOP screens and assesses participants, providing them with referrals to apprenticeship programs and job search assistance, as well as support and retention services. Joint Apprenticeship Training Committees (JATCs) provide apprenticeship training while union members provide volunteer mentoring to AOP-referred apprentices through the Trades Mentor Network.
Through this collaboration and comprehensive service, AOP has referred more than 550 economically disadvantaged people to apprenticeships and other family wage jobs since 1993, at an average starting wage of $11.85 per hour. Almost 400 of these individuals were referred to apprenticeships in 26 building and construction trades.
In 1998, AOP referred 90 people to apprenticeships (an 18% increase over 1997) and 30 more in other family wage jobs. 49% of AOP’s placements were women and 58% of them were minorities.
Sources of Variation
This report looks at labor hours worked in a single year, not for the entire project. Some of the projects included were at different points in the project cycle during 1998, which impacts the amount of labor used. Most projects are labor intensive in the middle of the project building cycle. At different times during any single project, it may appear to be close to or far from achieving its apprenticeship goals.
Projects under contract to the City of Seattle and Port of Seattle in 1998 may have begun construction as early as 1996, or as late as the last few months of 1998. All of these projects were included in the apprenticeship utilization statistics, whether they had thousands of hours that year or just a few hundred. Apprenticeship utilization overall for those two jurisdictions reflects a variety of projects at different points in the building cycle. Therefore, the overall average for those jurisdictions may not reflect the variation in apprenticeship utilization on individual projects.
For example, the Vulcan Northwest figures include restoration of the Cinerama in downtown Seattle. Apprentices worked 20.8% of the hours on that project in 1998, significantly surpassing the 15% policy. Moreover, 52.9% of the apprentices and 27.8% of the journey level workers who worked on it were minorities.
Further, the use of apprentices varies by the scope and type of work performed on a contract, the duration of the project, and the types of crafts employed. Large projects (those several years in duration and employing a wide variety of trades) use more apprentice labor. Comparisons across projects and developers are also difficult because each project is at a different point in its project cycle.
Some project-specific factors may limit the amount of apprentice labor that can be used. For example, a capital intensive project may use few apprentices. A project requiring many trades or small subcontractors may also use fewer apprentices. Safety and supervision standards can limit a smaller work team (2-4 people) from working with an apprentice. If a project does not require large amounts of labor hours for a specific trade, that trade may not produce apprentice hours for the project.
Is this apprentice utilization policy achieving its goals? Is it increasing the number of apprenticeship opportunities in King County? Is it helping women and minorities gain access to those living wage career opportunities? Is it developing a highly skilled, diverse workforce capable of meeting demand for skilled labor in the region? The overall answer is a qualified yes; while improvement can be seen, much more work is needed. This section discusses each of those policy questions in detail, and the final section offers recommendations for greater improvement.
Increasing
the number of apprenticeship opportunities in King County
In 1998, apprenticeship opportunities did increase from the previous year, both in terms of the number of apprentices working and the hours they worked. During 1998, 1,721 apprentices worked a total of 471,661 hours. This is more than double than the number of apprentice hours worked in 1997 (216,349), and more than double the number of apprentices doing that work (890).
The driving force behind this was a significant increase in the total number of hours worked on projects covered by the apprenticeship requirements. Again, this figure more than doubled, from 1,717,679 total labor hours in 1997 to 3,514,153 hours in 1998. The Port of Seattle and the Public Facilities District (PFD) were the main push behind this increase in labor hours, together accounting for nearly two-thirds of all labor hours worked. Vulcan Northwest (VNW) and Starwood Hotel each had significant increases in their labor hours as well.
* The baseline study included 48 covered projects at the Port of Seattle (25), City of Seattle (21) and King County (2) between 1994-96.
The PFD had the largest impact in creating apprenticeship opportunities in 1998. While it made up 35.5% of all labor hours covered by the apprentice requirements, it provided 43.4% of all apprentice hours worked. The PFD also had the highest rate of apprentice utilization (16.4%) in 1998.
Although all projects combined did not reach the 15% apprentice utilization goal (13.4%), this should be understood in the context of the doubling of demand for construction labor. On the supply side, apprenticeship programs were able to keep up with a sharp increase in demand, actually increasing apprentice utilization over 1997.
Helping
women and minorities gain access to these living wage career opportunities
Opportunities for apprenticeship
Overall, minorities are gaining greater access to the living wage career opportunities provided by apprenticeship, and their access is increasing each year. In 1998, minorities worked 27.2% of all apprentice hours covered by the requirements. This was an increase from 26.8% in 1997, and from 23.1% in the baseline study.
At the same time, the percent of women working apprentice hours has decreased. In 1997 women worked 20.5% of the total apprentice hours, up from 15% in the baseline study. However, in 1998 the percent of hours worked by women dropped below the original baseline, to 14.5%. This indicates that particular attention needs to be focused on recruiting and retaining women in apprenticeship.
Minority women continue to be significantly underrepresented in building and construction trades apprenticeships. Furthermore, in 1998 the percent of hours worked by minority women fell from the previous year (5.1%) to just over 4%. At the same time, it should be noted that minority women make up nearly the same percentage of total minority apprentices, nearly 14%, as white women make up of total white apprentices, 14.1%. It has been suggested that part of the reason they fare so poorly in building and construction trades is that there are so few minority women already working in the trades, leaving them without a network to look to for assistance in dealing with the issues they face. No matter what the cause, partners in the apprenticeship community need to place special emphasis on developing ways to recruit and retain minority women in apprenticeships.
Another measure of whether this policy is helping women and minorities gain access to apprenticeship is the impact AOP has on King County apprenticeship programs. In 1998, AOP referred clients to 17 trades.[1] 41.6% of those referrals were women, 57.1% were minorities, and 13% were minority women. This compares with the overall rates of entry that year in those same trades in King County, which were 11.3% women, 36.1% minorities, and 3.2% minority women.
Furthermore, AOP refers a significant number of the women and minorities who enter King County apprenticeship programs. In 1998, AOP referred half or more of all women who entered eight programs. AOP referred half or more of all minority women who entered four programs.
From apprenticeship to a career
It is not possible to track the individual apprentices who work the hours under the apprenticeship requirements to find out whether they complete their apprenticeships and reach journey level status. However, the positive impact of the policy on recruitment and retention of women and minorities in apprenticeship programs is evident in AOP statistics. The longer these apprentices stay in their programs, the more likely they are to journey out and make a career in building and construction trades. A larger proportion of AOP-referred apprentices appear to be staying longer, compared to the overall King County apprentice population.
Apprentices referred by AOP in 1998 were less likely to drop out of their program in the first year than the average King County apprentice. In the 17 trades where AOP referred clients, by mid 1999, 41.5% of all apprentices from King County had dropped out of their apprenticeship program. However, only 22.1% of those apprentices referred by AOP had dropped out, giving them a retention rate of 77.9%. Therefore, not only has AOP increased the supply of women and minorities the program has increased the likelihood that they will remain in the trades.
Developing
a highly skilled, diverse workforce capable of meeting demand for skilled labor
in the region.
This policy goal contains three interrelated components: Is the construction workforce becoming more highly skilled? Is the workforce becoming more diverse? Is the workforce capable of meeting demand? Indicators show that in 1998 the answer to all three is again a qualified yes, but that there are areas for improvement.
Is the workforce becoming more diverse?
Since the inception of the apprenticeship utilization policy, the percent of apprentice hours worked by minorities has increased. The total number of hours worked by minority apprentices increased by 142% from 1997, to a total of 128,480 hours in 1998. These figures indicate that the apprentice workforce is in fact becoming more diverse racially. However, while the actual number of apprentice hours worked by women increased by 68% percent from 1997, the share of hours worked by women apprentices decreased. The percentage of hours worked by women apprentices was in fact lower in 1998 than in the baseline study. This shows decreasing representation of women apprentices.
There has also been a decline in the representation of minority women in the apprentice workforce. While their participation increased in 1997 to 5% of all apprentice hours, this dropped to 4.1% of all apprentice hours in 1998.[2]
These figures indicate that while efforts to make the workforce more racially diverse have been successful, efforts to include more women, especially minority women, still need attention and further development.
Is the workforce capable of meeting demand?
Despite a surge in construction labor demand in 1998, the supply of apprentices was adequate to increase apprentice utilization slightly in King County. However, to reach this point, nearly every apprentice in the system was put to work, and the list of available apprentices exhausted. In the building and construction trades, employers and unions often respond to demand increases by recruiting labor from outside the region. While this probably took place to some degree in 1998, there were enough apprentices in King County to meet demand at a higher level than in 1997.
While the apprentice system was capable of meeting demand in 1998, this requires attention. If demand continues to rise as expected, the number of apprentices in the pipeline will also need to be increased. As the demand for construction labor continues to rise over the next few years, AOP, apprenticeship programs and the trade unions will need to continue to address barriers to apprenticeship.
Both AOP and many of the apprenticeship programs are actively working to recruit more people into building and construction trades. Several of the apprenticeship programs are implementing measures to make apprenticeship more attractive or make it easier for apprentices to enter. Apprenticeship programs also need to take a closer look at improving retention as a way of meeting demand, as well as lowering training costs. Some apprenticeship programs have trouble keeping apprentices in the program until they journey out. Further research is needed to learn why apprentices leave which programs, and what it would take to help them complete the full program.
Is the workforce becoming more highly skilled?
This study indicates that an increasing number of apprentices are working on King County construction projects. However, fully answering this question will require more data than is available here.
As apprentice hours more than doubled from 1997 to 1998, so did the number of apprentices working these hours, to a total of 1,721.[3] Since the policy was initiated, a total of 3,899 apprentices have worked under the utilization policy.
Since the baseline study, apprentices working on projects covered by the apprenticeship policy have worked an average of 275.8 hours each on those projects. This cumulative figure has increased from 1997 to 1998, indicating that apprentices are working more hours on individual projects covered by the apprenticeship policy.
Nonetheless, apprenticeship programs generally require between 4,000 and 10,000 hours of on-the-job (OJT) training over their three to five year apprenticeship. This points to one of the challenges of the apprenticeship system, that apprentices must accumulate these hours over several years on many different worksites. The jobs covered by the apprenticeship policy offer apprentices only a small percent of the hours they need per year to complete the program.
While the apprenticeship utilization policy has had a positive impact on the King County construction labor force, more effort will be needed to ensure that we continue to train and create opportunities for a diverse, well-trained local workforce. Statistics from 1998 indicate that the local workforce was able to hold steady in the face of a significant surge in demand. Private developers, recognizing AOP’s strengths, continue to sign on as program sponsors.
Statistical evidence from 1998 further indicates that the apprenticeship utilization policy is achieving its goals in several areas. The number of apprenticeship opportunities in King County are increasing. Women and minorities are gaining greater access to apprenticeship. The construction labor force is becoming more diverse. The supply of local apprentices is capable of meeting demand.
However, there are several factors indicating that more work is needed. Demand has grown more during 1999, and will continue to grow for several years. Efforts to ensure that local people, especially those who are economically disadvantaged, can access apprenticeship programs need to be stepped up. Second, with the passage of I-200, diversity requirements in City and Port contracting have been replaced by voluntary goals; King County eliminated goals for women and minorities entirely. Greater efforts on the supply side for increasing the access of women and minorities to apprenticeship, including pre-apprenticeship programs and training, are needed to ensure that efforts toward increasing diversity do not fall backward.
Toward those goals, we make the following five recommendations.
Increase efforts to recruit and retain women, especially minority women, into construction trades apprenticeships. While the share of labor hours worked by apprentices has steadily increased since the implementation of apprenticeship utilization policy, the share worked by women, especially minority women, has fallen. Greater understanding of why women do not choose apprenticeship, or choose to leave before completing the program, is needed, as are efforts to recruit and retain women in building and construction apprenticeship programs.
Invest more resources in pre-apprenticeship programs. The King County workforce is changing, and if there are to be enough apprentices to fill labor demand, more effort must be made to reach out to new communities that might not be immediately ready to become apprentices. Pre-apprenticeship programs play an important intervening role by helping people meet the requirements to enter and complete an apprenticeship program. However, changes in federal and state workforce training and welfare laws have had a negative impact on funding for pre-apprenticeship programs such as ANEW at a time when there is more need than ever for their services, and when opportunities for these living wage careers are growing. We recommend that more resources be invested in pre-apprenticeship programs.
Focus on lowering dropout rates from apprenticeship programs so that apprentices will stay in their programs, become skilled workers and make a career of their construction trades. Some apprenticeship programs simply do a better job than others of keeping the apprentices they indenture. Apprenticeship programs with high dropout rates need to learn why apprentices leave before they complete the program, then develop strategies to keep them in the program. This will increase the number of apprentices in the program while reducing training costs.
Keep working to make apprenticeship more attractive and accessible to a broader range of people. Apprenticeship programs should continue looking at other modifications to their entry requirements that do not lower standards but make apprenticeship more accessible to a wider range of people. For example, this could include focusing on ways to overcome language or transportation barriers that do not affect an individual’s ability to do the work.
For large projects, hire one person responsible for helping contractors meet apprentice utilization requirements and diversity goals. The Public Facilities District hired one person to have responsibility for ensuring that the project met its apprenticeship and diversity goals, and this project had the highest ratio of apprentices on its worksite. That individual was responsible for making sure that labor needs of contractors and sub-contractors were met and that apprentices had access to those training opportunities. He worked on-site, and was thus available to monitor compliance and address on the job issues as they arose. He also recruited apprentices from target communities. We particularly recommend this model for projects or agencies with special or very high labor needs.
Since its inception, the apprentices utilization policy has been meeting its goals. Apprentice utilization requirements and goals have increased demand while AOP has helped increase the supply of apprentices. Through these efforts, apprenticeship opportunities in King County have increased, women and minorities have gained greater access those living wage opportunities, and a highly skilled, diverse workforce capable of meeting demand for skilled labor is developing in this region.
The main highlight of 1998 is that the apprenticeship system was able to keep up with labor demand as it doubled from the year before. Twice as many apprentices worked twice as many hours as the year before, even increasing the portion of labor hours worked by apprentices from 1997.
A second major highlight is the growing share of apprentice hours worked by minorities. Every year since the policy was enacted, the percent of minorities working apprentice hours has increased, giving them greater access to those living wage training opportunities.
At the same time, women, especially minority women, saw a decrease in their access to apprenticeship. In 1998 the share of apprentice hours worked by women dropped. The percent worked by minority women, already low, fell even further. Particular effort is needed to ensure that more women have access to these opportunities.
Demand for skilled labor in construction is expected to increase in the next few years. To meet this demand in a way that builds a diverse, highly skilled local workforce, we recommend specific efforts be made to recruit women into the trades, invest in pre-apprenticeship programs, retain the apprentices who enter the programs, and continue to increase the attractiveness and accessibility of apprenticeship to all.
