News you should know about money and things getting people to work

This week, as workforce and jobs policy in the United States entered into an even more uncertain moment than it was a week ago, my mind returned to the alligator farm.

Last August, then Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer visited an alligator farm in Louisiana with one of that state’s senators, Sen. Bill Cassidy, who chairs the Republican-controlled Senate HELP Committee that had recommended confirming her about six months prior. The visit, part of a 50-state tour by Chavez-DeRemer, was meant to help sell the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

In hearings, Cassidy had talked up more states taking control of Registered Apprenticeship, in support of a key priority of the second Trump Administration, and had been deferential to the Administration’s agenda at the Department of Labor to a fault. Chavez-DeRemer was the face of the Administration’s efforts to reach one million apprentices. (Today is the anniversary of the executive order announcing that big swing.) Per recent reporting, her aides saw visits like this one, where she was taped riding an airboat for a Fox Business story, as key to raising her national profile in hopes of becoming Vice President J.D. Vance’s running mate in 2028.

This adventure stands out to me for three reasons now. One, it was a trip to an alligator farm. Two, around August was when I started hearing from multiple groups that the Administration seemed to be “scrambling” to figure out how to reach the one million apprentices goal. And three, it was the type of policy-light travel with questionable returns that unfortunately seems to have come to define the Chavez-DeRemer era, which ended late Monday after allegations of misspending Department funds around her travel, among many other things.

The American labor market is in a really tense moment right now, and the employers that the Trump White House tends to prioritize are looking for a lot of answers on questions like AI-related job loss.

Even with her ambitions, Chavez-DeRemer reportedly saw her role as a “figurehead.” I would be shocked if the White House wasn’t aware of that, which raises questions about how seriously they are paying attention to a batch of jobs policy issues that could be increasingly important over the life of their term. Even if you don’t take the potential labor-market transformation caused by AI that seriously, it seems tactically questionable that the White House would settle for a “figurehead” in the Labor job at this moment, especially with its intent to consolidate more money and power at the agency.

As doubts have grown about the apprenticeship work, Chavez-DeRemer’s team insisted the one million goal was “within reach,” never seeming to really provide details or numbers that tracked with that. For months last year, she appeared to be promoting apprenticeship growth numbers that showed it tracking behind enrollments in the Biden Administration.

I wouldn’t expect things to become more careful. Chavez-DeRemer’s lingering didn’t inspire confidence in those who deal with the Department. My understanding is that recent changes at the White House are likelier to deliver a less moderate view on DOL’s basket of issues. That isn’t exactly what’s needed and could counteract a lot of work by agency leaders to inspire confidence in the face of all this.

Of course, as Trump I appointees will tell you, there were a lot of smart people doing clever work in the original administration too. They just struggled to get across the finish line because you never knew when the White House was going to set things on fire or start looking for reasons to label someone as disloyal.

If they do intend to appoint a firebrand, though, it feels like they should hurry. Cassidy is fighting for his political life in Louisiana after the President endorsed one of his primary opponents due to Cassidy’s vote for impeachment after January 6 and some tough questioning of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

HELP is a necessary stop for the next nominee, and given there’s a distinct chance Cassidy won’t even make a runoff for his job, I wouldn’t bank on his making it easy for the Administration, although Republicans tend to hold together better in this space than the other side of the aisle. On workforce, Cassidy has not been viewed as a strong or well-versed HELP chair, but considering the deference he has provided to the Administration, the President’s endorsement in his race might have been a tactical error.

What that means for a lot of you reading this is the road ahead is probably going to be more uncertain, and I wouldn’t necessarily bet on the workforce priorities of Trump II we have today—some of which are embraced by quite leftward people—ending up as the priorities we have a year from now.

But at least we’ll always have the alligator farm…

Workforce, even though it is deeply fragmented and delegated in this country, tends to be an area of policy where the players always seem to be looking for The Next Big Thing to commit to. The problem with that is the road ahead likely will be less predictable than Trump I or the Biden Administration. While I do think highly of some people in the Administration, I wouldn’t count on their good work being what wins out.

That doesn’t resolve any of the painful ambiguity many workforce organizations are in, especially if they are reliant on federal workforce dollars. For them, the phrase I have come to say is this: don’t be afraid, be proactive.

It’s an unpredictable time, but it’s also a malleable one. Because a lot of people are looking for that bankable path, scraping out a path on your own by trying new ideas in this space—instead of waiting for them to be blessed by somebody—is a good idea (provided, you know, it’s legal). That involves knowing what your priorities are, why you’re pursuing them, and how you want to get there—three things that can be very challenging to find in this environment, but far from impossible.

Unless you’re running the “Come and Get Us We’re Doing the Illegal DEIA and UFC and Trump Resorts Are Terrible Bite Us” workforce program, I don’t think you’ll face a ton of active interference from the Administration. They like deferring to states, and they have too much on their plate, if nothing else.

Or put another way: don’t worry and do stuff. This world is chaotic, but doing stuff is much better than doing nothing and waiting for the wave to hit you.

Union-affiliated Apprenticeship Readiness Programs have grown in the past decade, but whether they place graduates into Registered Apprenticeship remains spotty, according to a new report expected to be published during next week’s National Apprenticeship Week by TradesFutures, a workforce intermediary group affiliated with North America’s Building Trades Unions.

The report says that these programs’ placement in Registered Apprenticeship or other union-affiliated employment paths can vary from 10 percent to 75 percent. Frequent barriers include limited local slots for placement and challenges with engaging industry, as well as missing worker skills in things such as math.

The authors recommend practices including building richer union relationships to provide more pathways to placement and careful enrollment strategies tied to expected demand, as well as things like supportive services—such as help with transportation—to get workers to and through training. They also recommend policies to create demand for apprenticeships, such as local hiring requirements and project labor agreements, which are project-specific collective bargaining arrangements that can specify better wages as well as apprenticeship opportunities.

The report doesn’t swim into these waters, but its findings did make me think of a couple things that are missing from Trump II’s one million apprentices strategy. One is this administration has definitely stepped back from pre-apprenticeship and similar feeder programs for Registered Apprenticeship, even if it has not done so explicitly.

Pre-apprenticeship was an area of emphasis for the Biden Administration, and those programs have been a useful tool for recruiting women and others who have not been able to access apprenticeship, populations where gains would help with getting to one million. They’re also a good way of bringing young people into the trades—something this Administration very much wants—because they provide experience that helps deal with a lot of younger workers’ hesitancy about blue-collar professions, something I heard Republicans in the House complain about this week.

More than a year ago, Trump II abruptly deleted DOL pre-apprenticeship guidance that served as a keystone for organizations shaping these programs. It does not appear to have been replaced. We don’t know why, but it went away during the High DOGE Era when documents with diversity components—like that guidance—disappeared from government websites. Pre-apprenticeship isn’t something the Administration is against, but the emphasis hasn’t been there, either.

But demand is also a problem, and working government levers can help, as the TradesFutures report notes. Trump II has canceled or frustrated many infrastructure projects that included those demand-side policies key to goosing apprenticeship numbers. It also hasn’t had the strongest labor engagement—something expected from Chavez-DeRemer. The fastest way to add apprentices is to work with programs that have been registered for years in trades the Administration says it wants to expand.

In other words, if you don’t support the feeders for apprenticeship, and you mess with the money that funds apprenticeship jobs (or don’t replace it), it’s hard to make a volume play for a great many more apprenticeships than we do now.