🔒More CT employers embrace apprenticeships to tackle labor shortages

After years of steady growth, Bethel-based Blackstone Industries now has 80 employees with room to add a few more.

But the state’s persistent labor shortage, particularly in manufacturing, could make it difficult for the blade and power toolmaking manufacturer to find the right talent.

“On the production level, hiring is difficult,” said Richard C. Milici, president and CEO of Blackstone Industries. “Years ago, we’d post a job and have 50 applicants on day two. But that’s really slowed down.”

Blackstone Industries, which is made up of five separate brands that make rotary power tools, wood carving blades, dental instruments and other items across several industries, has used many state hiring and training programs in the past.

That includes the incumbent worker training program, which provides grants to companies that want to upskill their employees, and the equipment voucher program through the Manufacturing Innovation Fund, which assists companies in buying new technology.

One it hasn’t tried, but is now considering, is the state’s registered apprenticeship program. State officials — including state Sen. Tony Hwang, Connecticut Chief Manufacturing Officer Paul Lavoie, and state Department of Economic and Community Development Commissioner Alexandra Daum — in July visited Blackstone’s 40,000-square-foot headquarters to promote apprenticeships as a way to combat the labor shortage.

The apprenticeship program has seen more use in recent years, but business advocates say it could see wider adoption with some legislative tweaks.

“The apprenticeship program is something we have talked about internally but haven’t used it yet,” Milici said. “We do have a lot of use for it though — we have a machine shop, and tool-and-die makers are difficult to find.”

State program

As workforce challenges have worsened in recent years, more Connecticut manufacturers are using the state’s formal apprenticeship program, which is run through the Department of Labor (DOL).

More than 1,750 employers in the state are registered for the program, with an average of about 6,400 apprentices active at those companies in a given year, according to DOL data from the last five years.

Those numbers represent an increase from the end of 2019, when the DOL said about 1,000 companies were enrolled employing 6,000 apprentices.

About 5,000 employers have utilized the state’s formal apprenticeship program over the last 10 years, DOL figures show.

The program requires employers to work with the labor department to identify a needed job, establish a curriculum, and then launch the registered apprenticeship.

“A lot of our member companies, especially within manufacturing, have really started to utilize this program a lot more,” said Ashley Zane, a lobbyist for the Connecticut Business & Industry Association.

Lavoie, the state’s manufacturing czar, said Connecticut has placed a lot of attention and investment in job training because of how hard positions like toolmakers are to fill. By creating an employment pipeline through apprenticeships, businesses can grow their skilled labor base while also training their employees of the future.

Workers get to earn money while learning a new trade. Apprenticeships are particularly important as manufacturers and other industries contend with a graying employee base.

“It’s another way to develop a workforce,” Lavoie said.

While manufacturing has been a focus in the past several years due to the longer-term worker shortage in that industry, the state Department of Labor has helped set up apprenticeship programs in other sectors, including for healthcare agencies, insurers, hairdressers, and just about everything in-between, said Todd Berch, DOL’s registered apprenticeship director.

“Pretty much any occupation can be an apprenticeable occupation,” Berch said. “Apprenticeships have always been looked at as just for blue-collar jobs — it’s an employer utilizing registered apprenticeships as a workforce development strategy.”

Through the state’s apprenticeship training program, companies can receive up to a $7,500 wage reimbursement tax credit annually, per apprentice.

In 2022, Zane said the legislature expanded the tax credit to include small- to medium-sized businesses that operate as S corps, partnerships and limited liability companies, in addition to corporations. Several smaller companies have taken advantage of the program, including Cheshire-based Marion Manufacturing.

“I think one of the things that is drawing the attraction to the apprenticeship program … is the fact that we have so many open positions, yet we still can’t seem to fill them,” Zane said. “You can use the apprenticeship program to get workers who might have the aptitude and the drive but not necessarily the skills yet to fill the positions. It really opens up the labor pool and provides new opportunities for employers and employees.”

In addition to the wage subsidies, legislators in 2018 established the Apprenticeship Connecticut Initiative that aimed to develop workforce pipelines and train workers for job placement. The General Assembly authorized up to $50 million in funding for workforce-related partners across the state to help with the initiative.

So far, $15 million has been allocated through the state Bond Commission.

Organizations in the state that have received funding from the Apprenticeship Connecticut Initiative include the: Capital Workforce Partnership; Eastern Workforce Investment Board Partnership; Northwest Regional Workforce Investment Board Partnership; Workforce Alliance Partnership; and Workplace Inc. Partnership.

State Sen. Cathy Osten (D-Sprague), who was a co-sponsor of the Apprenticeship Connecticut legislation, said it’s been money well invested.

In the recent legislative session, the General Assembly also included $1 million for the Connecticut State Building Trades Training Institute to further its apprenticeship programming for those in the construction industry.

Osten said she’s seen firsthand the impact of the Eastern CT Manufacturing Pipeline Initiative, run by the Eastern Workforce Investment Board Partnership, which provides no-cost training to address the hiring needs of Electric Boat and other manufacturers in that region.

Legislative changes

During his tour of Blackstone Industries in July, Sen. Hwang (R-Fairfield) spoke at length with journeyman machinist Neil deFriesse, who rose through the company’s ranks after starting decades ago as an apprentice.

DeFriesse, who is Blackstone’s machine shop manager, said he learned more during his four-year apprenticeship than he ever did in a classroom, and he’d welcome the opportunity to mentor the next generation of workers.

“If we give them the ability to hire and train talent, they’re going to grow in our state,” Hwang said of the manufacturing industry.

And Blackstone’s Milici knows his employee base is aging and in need of young people to carry work forward in the not-too-distant future.

“I have one guy that does our sheet metal work, I have one guy that powder coats and paints, I have a small machine shop with tool-and-die makers that are not far off from retirement,” Milici said.

Meantime, there are ways to further strengthen the apprenticeship program, said CBIA’s Zane, including allocating more money to it.

In addition, a currently required three-to-one ratio of journeymen to apprentices can be challenging for small manufacturers to meet. Changing the ratio requirement, or allowing certain exceptions through the DOL, would be a positive change, and something the CBIA might pursue during the next legislative session, Zane said.

“A lot of manufacturers through COVID-19 became exceedingly lean, so they don’t quite have the ratios to be able to take on apprentices, even if they have the actual capacity for them,” Zane said.

Berch clarified, though, that there are no ratio restrictions in manufacturing, only in construction. The ratio in manufacturing is one journey-person to one apprentice, he said.