WHY APPRENTICESHIPS SHOULD GO SOFT: A novel job training program fills the real skills gap.

• Author: Kim, Anne
• Position: Federation for Advanced Manufacturing Education

For more than a decade, economists, business leaders, and progressive writers and thinkers have waged a wonky war over the so-called skills gap--specifically, whether such a gap exists at all.

Employers, for their part, argue that the skills gap is real, and complain that it makes it tough to find qualified workers. Many progressives, however, say these gaps are a myth, the product of businesses' own failings. They charge employers with inflating the credentials required of applicants and skimping on worker training.

Research shows that the progressives have a point: Many companies are indeed guilty of "degree inflation," demanding college degrees for jobs that don't need them. Companies have also reduced investment in worker training over the past 20 years, forcing employees to seek more training themselves at community and for-profit colleges, often going into debt to pay for it. According to a recent report from the Aspen Institute, less than one-fifth of workers have access to employer sponsored or on-the-job training, and they tend to be the highest paid and already the best educated.

But employers are right, too. Many entry-level workers today are missing a crucial set of skills that most high schools and colleges don't teach: the so-called soft skills that are increasingly important for success in the modern workplace. These include basic workplace-survival behaviors like showing up every day and on time, and knowing how to talk to your boss and colleagues. They also include higher-order skills like critical thinking, problem solving, and collaboration. While more K-12 schools have begun teaching critical thinking and analytical skills under the rubric of "social-emotional learning," it's hardly part of the standard curriculum, nor is the pedagogy established about how to teach it well. As a consequence, most students don't learn in their classrooms what life is like on the job--and it shows.

Employers, says a U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation report, are "coping with new hires who are unsure of how to write a professional email, struggle to organize and prioritize tasks, or have a difficult time collaborating with coworkers." A survey of more than 1,000 hiring managers by the Society for Human Resource Management yielded a similar finding: About one-third cited a lack of soft skills among candidates as the reason they had trouble filling positions.

One promising program has the potential to end the deadlock over the skills gap, satisfying employers while addressing the skeptics' critique that companies skimp on training. Developed by the Federation for Advanced Manufacturing Education (FAME), this small-but-growing two-year apprenticeship-style program trains students to maintain and repair the machinery that now does most of the rote work of manufacturing. It has a unique curricular focus: As much as two-thirds of students' time is spent on soft-skills development, while just one-third is devoted to technical training. The result is that graduates have excellent professional and collaborative skills, fulfilling employers' needs. But it's also successful enough to draw the kind of financial investment from companies that workers deserve. First launched at a single Toyota factory in 2010, it has already grown to involve more than 350 manufacturers in 13 states, from large refrigerator makers to smaller plastics plants. Of the roughly 850 students who have graduated so far, 85 percent have been hired by their sponsoring employers with starting salaries at $50,000 or more. And because the students don't pay for their training, they can graduate debt free.

While few issues these days draw bipartisan consensus, politicians as diverse as Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and even Donald Trump agree on the need for more high-quality career and technical education opportunities in general, and apprenticeships in particular. FAME could be the kind of program to drive that consensus into action, for the benefit of both employers and workers.

Dennis Dio Parker, the founder of FAME, has grappled for decades with skills shortages, ever since his employer, Toyota, launched a...