ABC: Government-Registered Apprenticeship Programs Still Do Not Meet Construction Workforce Needs

At current rates of participation and completion, federal and state government-registered apprenticeship programs, or GRAPs, are still failing to meet the construction industry’s short- and long-term skilled workforce development needs, according to an annual Associated Builders and Contractors’ analysis of released U.S. Department of Labor data.

ABC estimates that, in fiscal year 2024, the construction industry’s federal and state GRAPs had about 290,000 apprentice participants and yielded less than 40,000 completers.*

The DOL’s data presents 5-year trend lines indicating there has been stronger proportional growth in the number of nonunion GRAPs, apprentice participants and apprentice completers compared to union-affiliated GRAPs since 2019.

• In FY 2024, 84% of the construction industry’s GRAPs were nonunion providers. The number of nonunion GRAPs has grown by 25% since 2019, compared to a 7% decrease in union-affiliated GRAPs since FY 2019.
• Participants in nonunion GRAPs increased by 43% from FY 2019 to FY 2024, compared to 11% for union programs.
• Completers of nonunion GRAPs increased by 31% from FY 2019 to FY 2024, compared to 11% for union programs.
• However, in FY 2024, 31% of all construction industry GRAP participants were in nonunion programs.

*Note that six states did not report complete GRAP data to the DOL, so ABC’s figure incorporates rough estimates to account for missing state data in order to paint a more complete picture.

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