In April, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to encourage the expansion of apprenticeships, setting a goal of 1 million new active apprentices. The order demonstrates that policymakers now understand what manufacturing employers have long felt: If we want to bring more manufacturing back to the United States, we need ways to build talent pipelines.
Workers are the backbone of our industry, and right now, we need more of them. More than two-thirds of employers in electronics manufacturing reported difficulty in finding and retaining skilled workers in an industry survey by IPC, the global electronics association. By 2031, the U.S. manufacturing sector is projected to have 2.1 million unfilled jobs.
For employers, the benefits of apprenticeship are well documented. In the United States, employers report an average return of $1.44 for every dollar invested in apprenticeship. Apprenticeship helps employers with hard-to-fill roles, as well as increase the productivity of workers. But even though apprenticeships are an age-old idea (dating back to Ben Franklin and Paul Revere) with plenty of data to back them up, they remain underused.
The good news is that interest in apprenticeships is growing: The number of active registered apprentices in the U.S. has nearly doubled in the past decade. While apprenticeship has the deepest roots in the skilled trades, it’s also expanding to new industries like firefighting, teaching, and healthcare. Can the approach work in fields like electronics manufacturing as well?
At Mack Technologies, we piloted our first apprenticeship in 2024, with four apprentices graduating from the Surface Mount/Circuit Board Technician apprenticeship program in Melbourne, south of Port Canaveral on Florida’s east coast. After the success of the initial group, we’ve now expanded the effort, rolling out new apprenticeship programs in partnership with The Global Electronics Association. What we’ve learned can help others across the manufacturing industry build and implement apprenticeships to solve their workforce challenges — in ways that help fulfill the president’s vision for a stronger American apprenticeship system.
First, it’s important to think of investing in apprenticeships as a competitive advantage, leading to both a talented workforce and a culture of learning. We’ve seen those benefits firsthand: 93% of apprentices who complete our program remain employed with us, reducing turnover and recruitment costs. As apprentices earn industry-recognized certifications, we’ve also seen fewer errors and greater efficiency on the production floor. With support from state and federal programs, we’ve also reduced upfront training expenses and received financial incentives for each apprentice trained, all while building a workforce with the skills and readiness our operations require.
Second, think expansively about who your apprentices should be. Because the training is provided on-the-job, apprentices can have a wide range of backgrounds — whether they have hands-on experience but no formal credentials, or no prior exposure to electronics at all. The apprenticeship model gives them a path to a new career, while both earning and learning at the same time.
One of our apprentices, for example, came from retail and was looking for a more stable career. Today, she’s mastering soldering and printed circuit board assembly, key skills on our production floor. “This program gave me a career path I never imagined,” she says. These stories reflect what apprenticeship can offer: a way to help businesses develop the talented workforce they need while creating real economic opportunity for individuals.
With the success of our first 20 apprentices, we’re continuing to bring more talent into the field in Florida. But just as importantly, we hope that others in the industry can expand on what we’ve learned and build their own apprenticeship programs. For manufacturers looking to stay competitive, apprenticeship offers a practical way to build capabilities, strengthen teams, and invest in the long-term health of the industry.
Lea Tavani is the human resources director at Mack Technologies in Melbourne, Florida and holds a master’s degree in education from the University of Georgia.
