(The Center Square) – The New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions recently got $5.95 million from taxpayers through the U.S. Department of Labor to create the Energizing, Building, and Connecting Through Apprenticeship Program.
The state will use the funding to expand Registered Apprenticeships statewide, “while creating and strengthening career pathways to skilled jobs with competitive wages in areas that will support clean energy and infrastructure development,” the release said.
“Investing in clean energy apprenticeships ensures a sustainable future, providing well-paying jobs and supporting our local green energy economy and infrastructure,” Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham said.
The grant will help develop and boost clean energy and infrastructure apprenticeship programs.
“The expanded apprenticeship programs will assist and ensure businesses have access to a skilled and ready workforce,” the release said.
The Energizing, Building, and Connecting Through Apprenticeship Program has four components. Here are those components, according to the release:Recruiting pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship applicants to both the program and directly into registered apprenticeship programs.Enrolling and supporting pre-apprentices in pre-apprenticeship programs in the target industries and facilitating their progression to a registered apprenticeship program.Identifying partners to create new or expanded pre-apprenticeship and registered apprenticeship programs in clean energy and infrastructure development.Working with employers to encourage hiring pre-apprenticeship program completers as registered apprentices. Through key partnerships with businesses, labor unions, workforce and economic development organizations, workers’ rights organizations, and peer state agencies, the program will promote diversity in these fields and provide opportunities for underrepresented groups and underserved communities across the state.
“Our state plan identifies infrastructure development and energy transition as priority sectors, and this grant will enable the department to use the proven effective strategies of pre-apprenticeship and registered apprenticeship to meet the needs in these areas,” NMDWS Cabinet Secretary Sarita Nair said. “This funding will allow the department to build stronger partnerships with employers and training providers, ensuring that the good jobs in these industries are available in all parts of the state and to all New Mexicans.”
Pre-apprenticeship programs teach skills needed in apprenticeship programs, including math and reading skills, according to the Department of Labor. High schools and community colleges typically house these programs, according to Apprenticeship.gov.
In New Mexico, students must be at least 16 years old and at least a junior in high school to partake in pre-apprenticeship programs. The programs can serve as elective courses in high schools, allowing students to receive credits toward graduation, according to Justia. However, school-aged teenagers typically complete their pre-apprenticeship programs during the school day. However, they sometimes take place outside of the local school facility in locations like union halls, Justia said.
Though pre-apprenticeship programs are supposed to help improve math and reading skills — skills necessary for many blue-collar jobs — children in New Mexico rank dead last in both categories, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Just 19% of the state’s eighth graders can read proficiently, while 13% of children in the same grade are proficient in math.
The grant’s objectives align with the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act State Combined Plan, the release said. Those aims include growing, “a workforce that supports safe and healthy New Mexican families and communities, grow a workforce to modernize New Mexico’s infrastructure, and anticipate and prepare the workforce for changes in the New Mexico economy,” the release said.
