King County Apprenticeship Program

• Program Overview
• How the Program Benefits Workers and the Community
• Accomplishments
• 2005 Goals
• Registering as an Apprentice, or Hiring an Apprentice
• 2007 Apprenticeship Program Report
  (987KB PDF)

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Program Overview
King County 's Apprenticeship Program is committed to fostering partnerships with labor, business, and the local community to create a skilled workforce that reflects the diversity of the county's population.

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How the Program Benefits Workers and the Community
The King County Apprenticeship Program is part of a concerted regional effort to address population trends in recent demographic studies that forecast a shortage of skilled workers in the construction industry in the Puget Sound Region. An essential component of the program is the inclusion of minorities, women, and persons with disabilities and economically disadvantaged youth as apprentices on selected county public works projects. Resulting journey workers can enter the region's pool of skilled labor, fully qualified for jobs. In addition to promoting a well-trained diverse workforce that is critical to the economic and social vitality of the Puget Sound region, the apprentice starts a career path in a vibrant and essential industry, while earning a livable family wage.

King County establishes apprenticeship requirements on selected public works projects.  Total labor hours and opportunity for training are the determining factors in establishing apprenticeship requirements.  

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Accomplishments include: 

• Achieved an overall 15.4% apprentice utilization rate in 2004. A total of 692 apprentices were employed on county projects;
• Revised apprenticeship requirements to set participation levels based on the contract scope of work;
• Improved communication to gather and report the use of apprentices on county contracts; 
• Strengthened mechanisms to support contractor compliance with the apprenticeship requirements;
• Implemented a web-based reporting system for use by contractors to report all labor hours worked by apprentices by trade and craft; and
• Effective January 1, 2004, the Apprenticeship Program includes annual hiring voluntary goals for minorities and women (20% and 18% respectively of all apprenticeship labor hours) for County-funded construction projects that contain the apprenticeship requirements.

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2005 Goals:

• Achieve 15% apprenticeship utilization rate for all construction projects subject to these requirements;
• Increase the total labor hours worked by apprentices by 25% for all labor hours allocated to construction projects with apprenticeship requirements; and
• Increase contractor compliance with the apprenticeship requirements.

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Registering as an Apprentice, or Hiring an Apprentice

For information on registering as an apprentice or hiring apprentices, visit the Washington State Labor and Industries Website at http://www.lni.wa.gov/TradesLicensing/Apprenticeship/default.asp (external link).